Green wheelie bins

Or are you perhaps one of those residents who had to give their bin back because they're not entitled to garden waste removal?

Either way the sight of these many unused green bins stored on land in Ninfield may be of interest.

The Observer understands the bins have been stacked there for approximately two weeks having been transported from the Veolia depot at Bulverhythe.

A spokesman for Rother said that Verdant have the storage area in Ninfield which is used for their turnover stock of wheeled bins and boxes and currently has 150 wheelie bins on site.

He described these as stock "used to replace damaged, broken or lost equipment."

Back in May, Rother's Head of Amenities Madeleine Gorman admitted that some 11,000 households were still waiting to be provided with green waste services and would be informed of a start date as soon as possible.

She apologised for the delay in roll-out of green bins to communities across the district, including some areas of Bexhill, and claimed Rother could not meet costs proposed by Verdant, which exceeded the available budget, but that this problem would be resolved with the need to "carefully control costs".

This week she commented: "As we explained, Verdant use the site for temporary storage. Verdant will ultimately need to vacate the London Road depot (due to the new link road that is planned) so have been investigating operational depot facilities at locations that would serve the district including Bulverhythe but they haven't made any final decisions about a longer term depot site yet. We have no information that bins originally went to the Veolia part of the Bulverhythe site but all RDC bins are stamped to ensure the ownership is clear.

"As we explained there are approximately 150 green bins currently in storage that are used as replacements when needed. Residents who do not have green bins do not live in area where green collection rounds are operating yet. New green collection rounds depend as much on the provision of vehicles and staff to make the collections as the presence of a green bin."