Everything you may have missed from Portsmouth City Council meetings this week

RUBBISH, rubbish everywhere and everyone’s sick of it.

That’s how Portsmouth residents reacted to news the council would be restricting the amount of household waste they would take away by the end of the year.

In a bid to cut costs and protect the environment Portsmouth City Council announced the plans to limit every home to three bin bags or one wheelie bin’s worth of rubbish a week.

The council’s environment boss, Cllr Dave Ashmore, said: ‘Residents have made it clear that they do not want to lose their weekly waste collections and we want to find ways to reduce costs to make sure this doesn’t happen.’

But not everyone was so enamoured with the scheme, that is due to be made permanent later this year.

Several residents feared the change would lead to more rubbish in the streets if households fail to meet the 140 litre guidelines.

Read the full story about the bin changes here

The week’s good news story came after councillors voted unanimously to increase the wages of the council’s lowest paid workers to meet the real living wage. This means that workers such as cleaners and care home and domestic assistants will earn £8.75 an hour as of September, as opposed to their current hourly rate of £7.83.

Read the full story here

However, there were party clashes over the evacuation of two city tower blocks. Lib Dem and Tory councillors argued over how much it would cost to move residents of Horatia House and Leamington House into new homes.

The Tories stated the figure would be around £35m and feared it would impact on the budget for regeneration schemes in Portsmouth.

But the council’s housing boss, Lib Dem Cllr Darren Sanders, said: ‘Although it is far too early to provide any detailed figures about how much the work will cost, the indicative figures we have seen would cost the council considerably less than the £35m mentioned by Cllr Stubbs.’

Get the full low down on the clash between the Lim Dem and Tory councillors here

And finally, people power won the day when one resident successfully lobbied the council to re-think the length of double yellow lines on a junction near his home.

Kevan Kavanagh, of Templeton Close, hoped to see more parking spaces made available on the corners of Battenburg Avenue and Randolph Road if the council makes the changes.

In response to his request Cllr Lynne Stagg, the council’s head of transportation, said: ‘We are consulting on a proposal to reduce the double-yellow lines at the crossroads of Battenburg Avenue and Randolph Road, and welcome comments.’

Read the full run down of Kevan Kavanagh’s lobbying of the council here