By Rachel Cole and Rob Gooding, Tenant Involvement Team
Two community skips were held on the White Bear Estate on Tuesday 22 October, 9am until 3pm or until full. RMBC Officers invited Rotherfed staff along to support this.
The initiative, aimed at helping residents dispose of unwanted items and declutter their homes, it saw enthusiastic participation from the local community filling two skips with a vast assortment of rubbish, all before 12pm. The Mears caretakers also assisted by collecting waste from residents’ gardens and picking up bulky items which they couldn’t get to the skip themselves.
Community skip days are always a much-needed service, enabling households to get rid of bulky waste that is typically hard to manage, and it supports residents that have no way to take rubbish to the tip. The overall aim of this is an attempt to help reduce fly tipping in the area and make the estate cleaner and safer for residents.
As well as the skips, staff litter picked around the area. It was a great clean-up day for the estate.
Whilst on the estate, as well as helping with the clean-up, Rotherfed staff were able to chat to local residents, who they had previously contacted at the summer event, about forming a group/tara for the estate. This estate would really benefit from a resident’s group as this would enable them to apply for funding and put more activities, day trips etc on for the residents. We have now arranged a meeting with 3 residents for next month to hopefully move this group forward and support them to become constituted with a bank account, which will open up so many opportunities for them.
The possibility of having a free Christmas grotto on the estate next month is also being looked into.