General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

During this time of crisis and uncertainty due to the present pandemic, we have heard of many goodwill gestures, kindness and positive attitudes in Wigan. This is wonderful and paints Wigan in a very good light, and I thank these people; they are a credit to the town. However, this is a personal story that has caused me considerable distress during these times. We have a minority in our town that have no scruples. During the early stages of lockdown I’m sure that you heard about the initial fly tipping problem; this story might infuriate you as much as it has enraged me.
Shortly before lockdown my mother who lives on a council estate, had been mentioning rubbish appearing in her back garden. So I took a look and there was indeed quite a few bin bags, bottles, cans, a bike frame, even an old tumble dryer. Before I could take action, lockdown began and I was one of the unfortunate people who was considered extremely vulnerable, so have had to completely shield for 3 months. In the meantime I told her to hang on a while as it was likely that the Council wouldn’t be allowing anyone out to inspect.
Now, my mother is in her late 80s, lives, alone, is disabled, has Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia. She recently rang me to say that there was more rubbish tipped in her garden, so I got in touch with a local Councillor who very kindly looked into this for me. I then had a telephone call from the Council who were very helpful and promised to send one of their contractors to inspect the rubbish with a view to arranging removal. Today the contractor rang me to say he had been given the go ahead from the Council to arrange removal. I asked how much was there and was shocked by his reply. He told me it would take 2 days to remove as there is a ‘mountain’ of bin bags with food inside, plus heaps of beer cans, bottles, general rubbish… and even prunings from trees!
I’m disgusted at the behaviour of people who appear to have no qualms about casually dumping rubbish, but to subject an old, disabled woman with dementia to this is absolutely sickening. They should be locked up.
On top of this we need to consider the cost of a contractor taking 2 days to remove this, which will be paid by us from our council taxes. The money that has to be allocated to these types of incidents could be spent on other important issues in the Borough. I do hope they find the culprit or culprits. I know what I’d like to do to them!