This spring Brixham residents and visitors will benefit from £750,000 of public realm improvements to the harbourside.
Torbay Council and Brixham Town Council have been working on ideas that will make Brixham harbour an even more attractive and vibrant place.
Emerging ideas include:
Installing new 600 litre solar smart compacting bins, that will prevent the bin from overflowing and reduce the amount of street clutter.
Mounting approximately 250 metres of LED festoon lighting around the harbour.
Replacing seating and benches and adding seasonal feature planting such as colourful hanging baskets.
Improving access and public safety around the harbour / fishing port.
Providing safe launching, landing and mooring facilities for paddleboard and kayak users.
Improving way finding and directional signage to enhance the visitor experience.
Repainting the harbour railings, pillars, lamp posts and Quay Market structure.
Until Friday 21 February, residents and businesses, particularly those based in Brixham are encouraged to view the proposals and share any other ideas they may have.
There are several ways that people can view and comment on the proposals over the next three weeks:
Attend one of the face-to-face events taking place on Saturday 8 and Wednesday 19 February, 10am until 2pm, at the Scala Hall, TQ5 8TA
The improvements are being funding using £750,000 of government grant funding that Torbay Council secured through the Levelling Up Partnership.
SWISCo will start work on the improvements this spring. Improvement and installation work will be carried out in phases, ensuring it does not impact on spring and early summer events.
Angry councillors have slammed the ’embarrassing’ decision to end a trial of BigBelly bins in Brixham just halfway through — and have vowed to fight for their introduction across the Bay.
Torbay Council terminated a two-month trial of the large solar-powered, seagull-proof bins on Monday, blaming health and safety concerns of waste collectors Tor2.
But when Brixham Town Council gathered on Thursday night they were given a fuller explanation about some of the issues which plagued the four-week experiment.
Town clerk Tracy Hallett read a Torbay Council report on why the trial failed.
She said the initial roll-out of the bins was delayed for a week because ‘it fell on the week where one of the main officers was on leave’. When they were in place bins were not emptied because ‘keys hadn’t been passed on to the operatives’.
The high-tech bins were supposed to send a signal when they were full but problems with computer software involving both Tor2 and Torbay Council led to issues and bins were emptied ‘whether they needed to be or not’, said the report.
Other problems included ‘operatives on the ground’ not being sure how the new bin collecting procedure worked. New liners ‘promised at the start of the trial didn’t arrive till week three’, the clerk said. When they did they were not compatible with the hoist mechanism.
Brixham was provided with six bins for the planned eight-week trial. The trial was meant to continue until August 20 but in the end the bins were in place just 26 days.
It was hoped the bigger bins would save money for the council because of fewer collections, but when problems collecting the weighty bins became known Torbay Council agreed to pay for an extra worker to help, the meeting was told.
Torbay councillor Richard Haddock, addressed the meeting in his role as executive lead for business.
He was given a round of applause by members of the public and some town councillors after telling the meeting he would demand answers from Kier Group, which has a 10-year contract with Torbay Council to run waste collection services as part of the Tor2 partnership.
He said: “That contract between Torbay Council and Kier can be renegotiated this autumn and we’ve asked for that to be done. All contracts are amendable.
“I want to see the BigBelly bins trial done properly and not played with. We will fight this one because at the end of the day my job is to cut £18.3million in the next three years. I want to see BigBelly bins safely rolled out across the whole of the Bay because I want to save money.
“We have to sort this problem out.”
Earlier town councillor David Giles had proposed a motion stating Brixham’s ‘dismay’ at the decision to end the trial, branding it an ’embarrassing failure’. But after Cllr Haddock promised to meet with the operators it was withdrawn.
Cllr Giles said: “The withdrawal of the BigBelly bins trial earlier this week proves beyond any shadow of doubt that if we set out to fail we will.
“This is against a backdrop of success everywhere else in the land where they have been introduced. What is the difference between Torbay Council and those other authorities?”
He also questioned the length of the contract with Tor2 and whether it should be reviewed and asked for negotiations to ‘get this thing back on track’.
“This is a much-needed improvement, especially in terms of litter in the harbour. It is an absolute no-brainer. It is successful everywhere else in the world. What an embarrassment Torbay Council and Tor2 are.”
Cllr Mike Morey said ‘lambasting Torbay Council was not the right way to go about things’. He agreed the BigBelly bins appeared to be a cost-saving solution but the trial had ‘created a lot of additional costs’.
Cllr Ian Carr said he believed BigBelly bins would ‘make a massive difference’ as other bins would fill up quickly and lead to more collections.
Cllr Paul Addison said Babbacombe in Torquay has run a successful trial of the bins without any health and safety issues.
“We need a fully costed report of this from Tor2 or the council to show us the reasons for dumping it,” he added.
Cllr Jessica Stock said she ‘strongly urged’ Torbay Council to act and support the BigBelly bins because of the improvement they made to the environment and cost savings.
Chairman of Brixham Chamber of Commerce, Jacqui Shaw said “How embarrassing for Tor2, and in particular Torbay Council and Kier, that they’ll be the only provider failing on a solar bins initiative in the UK. We had hoped that they would embrace solar bins as all other providers have in the UK, that Brixham would benefit from the manpower saving and that we could then reinvest the manpower to other tasks. Tor2 had no intention of allowing this project to be successful and we’ll be pursuing this matter in more depth with them. We urge the council to look seriously at the terms and conditions of their contract with a view to finding another more forward-thinking and collaborative partner.”
Brixham is to start an extended trial of ‘Big Belly’ bins to reduce litter around the harbour and cut costs. The solar-powered bins compact waste, giving them at least five times the capacity of the current bins. They also sense when they are almost full and send a signal to a control station to request emptying. It is claimed this reduces the number of collections and stops the problem of overflowing bins. The bins have a protected opening which means gulls and rats can’t get in. The trial involves six Belly Bins being provided free of charge during July and August around the inner harbour.
Brixham Town Council has agreed to support the trial, which is a project of Brixham Future, formerly known as the Brixham Regeneration Group. Project lead Nigel Makin said: “I kept seeing litter, with our seagull problem getting worse and worse. I was in Sidmouth in October 2014 having fish and chips when I came across a Big Belly bin and I found out more about them. In Sidmouth there isn’t a seagull problem in terms of rubbish anymore.”
Cllr Ian Carr said “There’s only a limited number we can get on a free basis. It’s about proving the bins will work and will handle the capacity that will be thrown at them in the peak summer season.”
Cllr Jackie Stockman said: “It’s a brilliant idea. During the trial we can identify where it’s working and where it isn’t, and it should assist greatly.”
If the trial is successful, each bin costs around £1,100 per year for five years, including servicing and maintenance, equating to £6,600 per year and £33,000 for a five-year contract for six bins.
Torbay Council said it will not fund the new bins fully but would consider a joint funding agreement with the town council.
A Torbay Council spokesperson said a similar trial of the bins has already started in Babbacombe: “This trial is all part of the work we have been doing with our grounds maintenance provider and the local businesses to improve the downs. Following the trial all feedback will be considered and will direct our next steps.
“With regard to the trial of these new bins around Brixham Harbour, it will start around June 20 and will last for eight weeks. There will be six bins in the trial and again the feedback and results will be looked at before a decision is made about how to move forward.”
The need to upgrade the public bins in the town is an issue that the Chamber has been advocating for some time.
There is an ongoing problem of litter around the town and in the harbour area in particular at busy times of year. Our current bins cannot cope but there is a solution which has been successfully implemented in many towns and cities across the UK and worldwide. Big Belly Bins have a built in solar-powered compactor which gives them at least 5 times the capacity of our existing bins. They also have seagull-proof entry hoppers and even call the operator when they are ready to be emptied.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im2hBVHClps
We have been lobbying relevant authorities to take this initiative forward and the good news is that at the council’s Planning and Regeneration Committee on Monday 7th September members resolved to recommend to Full Council that Brixham Town Council pursues the Big Belly Bins around the Harbour area as recommended by BrixhamFuture. The full case is given below:
The Issue
Brixham is a victim of both its own success and of its mixed heritage of fishing port and tourist destination. During the season (May to September) in particular, the town experiences huge uplifts in refuse and hence demands on refuse collection. Unfortunately, without criticism of the local operators, the refuse collection strategy fails to keep up with the demand, even though the harbourside in particular benefits from 4 collections daily. This leads to litter being dropped/deposited/blown on the streets, around and in the harbour.
The main source of this litter is located in particular around the harbour because our bins are in the main
open topped. This leads to our seagull population not only aggressively attacking the litter on the streets and sometimes the visitors, but actively removing as much food/litter from the bins to satisfy their daily diets.
The Solution
Big Belly Bins have been introduced to seaside resorts such as Sidmouth, Exmouth, Seaton, Bournemouth and St Ives. Their solar panel produces enough power to operate the mechanism inside which compresses all the waste allowing for an increased capacity and advises the refuse collectors when they are full. This therefore helps clean up Brixham, improving the image and environment. It diminishes the opportunities that seagulls have to feed as well as the seagull nuisance element. The major benefit has to be the cost saving. There is potential to reduce the total man hours by up to 50% on refuse collection. This time can then be reallocated to other key projects, for example; street cleaning, gardening etc.
