A Cleaner Camden?

Does this sight seem familiar? It stayed like this for several days, stinking in the hot sun, until a quick Councillor phone call resolved the problem - but it shouldn't need to be like that!
This is by no means the only complaint we've received in recent weeks, and in each case the resident had reported their problem via the website - had no joy, rung up, tried again and eventually reported to Camden's complaints department.
This is sad because the waste collection and recycling service is usually efficient and responsive, but just one or two incidents like this bring the whole service into disrepute.

Recently, one enterprising resident asked Camden if they had heard of a company called Love Clean London (http://lovecleanlondon.org/Reports/Home) who work in a number of other Boroughs. They supply an app which allows people to photograph a problem (such as graffiti or fly-tipped rubbish) and send it in to be dealt with.  It works so well in Lewisham apparently that they actually issue their street cleaners with smart phones so they can themselves report problems (e.g. graffiti) or open cable boxes.  Plus it saves Lewisham money, for example fly tipping has fallen by 53% since this was introduced.  It is also much quicker and cheaper to report a problem. 

So, he asked :"Why isn't it being used in Camden?"

Camden's reply is typical! They don't believe it currently would work as well as their existing system and they say it “would not offer us an integrated solution for getting the report to our contractors in a quick and efficient way as it would require the manual inputting of the reports received.”  But they say they will investigate various solutions, including making better use of the Camden’s own website and add: “Either way we are committed to making reporting as easy as possible for our customers.”

What of course, they don’t seem to consider – it’s not just that we want the reporting made easier – we also want something done about the problems we report!!