"Cleansing Oversights" on Dacorum's Website

Dacorum's Website "Cleansing Oversights" page claims that either an item will be cleared the next working day, or an explanation given. I have never been contacted to say why my reported items cannot be cleared.

There is also a form for general complaints on the website. Sometimes I follow up the un-addressed “Cleansing Oversight” report by posting one of these complaints, but these remain similarly unanswered.

This is why I wrote on June 9th to Mr. Zammit, the Council's Chief Executive, with a specific and easily identifiable example, to request that he ensured that I got an explanation of what had happened to my complaint. Since I had supplied my name and address on the online forms, and I presumed that these were stored on a database, I believed that the Council were required to tell me the status of the record. In particular I asked to know whether this one has been allocated a number, priority, position in queue, target date etc.

The details of my complaint were:

· A single mattress, dumped next to the start of the footpath to Pouchen End Lane that begins at the end of Rowcroft (off Long Chaulden, Warners End). On entering the footpath the mattress is immediately on the right between the wire fence and the hedge.

· Reported as (item 2 of) a “Cleansing Oversight” report 18th May ‘05

· Still there on 25th May (no response). Reported as a general complaint on the Website.

· (No response) Still there on 8th June.


After a few more letters the mattress was cleared at the end of June, and I received details of the five complaints I had made this year. The council's database was found to be over-optimistic, claiming that all five had been cleared when two had not, and this is now a matter for ongoing improvement.