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Winds of change strike public cleansing services

• Development of refuse container systems had not been exploited by local authorities to the extent one might have expected, said Mr. W. A. Turner in his presidential address to the 71st Institute of Public Cleansing Conference at Harrogate on Tuesday.

Street cleansing was probably the least rewarding service to control. Despite the efforts spent on organization and equipment, the work of the street cleansing staff was often obliterated in a very short time by a thoughtless public. A paper to he submitted on this subject was the result of research by the Dawes Scholar, one of the younger members of the Institute.

Too often they were blamed for low standards of service when the cause of the trouble was bad planning, lack of care in using the facilities provided, and carelessness. The appearance of its streets, the indiscriminate dumping of rubbish and unwanted articles, untidy storage areas, all indicated a lack of interest and effort on the part of a society which was not slow to criticize any shortcomings in the service.

Contacts had been made during the past year with the Institute of Packaging and from the initial discussions there was every hope that both sides would benefit from an exchange of views.

Transport legislation

New legislation, and regulations made thereunder, had been designed in a determined effort to improve road safety, said Mr. J. Skitt whose subject was "Recent transport legislation and its effect on maintenance". Considerable thought on policy and detail had been necessary and the task of implementation could only be described as enormous.

In order to achieve the ultimate aim in an organized and practical way some "phasing inwas essential, hence some initial exemptions. Refuse collection units, and some others operated by cleansing departments, were generally slow-moving, stop' start vehicles, with a payload limit in terms of volume and which for much of their working life were not fully loaded. By the manner in which they were loaded their weight when loaded was not known.

It appeared from Part V. Section 60 of the Transport Act 1968, that local authorities would be required to hold operators' licences, as this was necessary for the carrying on of a business. Subsection (3) read ". . . the performance by a local or public authority of their functions constitutes the carrying on of a business". This, however, did not preclude the Minister from exempting local authorities under Section 60 (2) lb). No decision had yet been made on this. A vehicle could only be specified on one licence. It appeared that a vehicle loaned to another local authority on a goodwill basis would involve administrative work if the loan period were over one month. The official view on this was that in all cases an operator's licence would be required by the person who was actually using the vehicles. Thus. where a local authority lent vehicles to another and their use was controlled by the second authority (i.e. the second authority provided the driver, or employed him as its servant or agent) then that local authority must ensure that the vehicles were covered by its operator's licence.

Equally, since it was an offence under the Transport Act for any vehicle to be specified in two operators' licences, the first local authority would have to notify the Licensing Authority that the vehicles had been removed from its own licence, To overcome the administrative inconvenience that this might cause it should be possible for most local authorities to secure operators' licences authorizing more vehicles than they actually owned. Vehicles borrowed temporarily would not then necessitate a licence variation. Such arrangements would, of course, depend on the local authority's ability to provide adequate maintenance arrangements for the total number of vehicles authorized on its licence.

He understood that temporary replacement regulations would be issued under which the likelihood was that notification of substitution for a vehicle undergoing major repair need only be given by the loaning authority. '

Section 65 dealt with Transport Managers' Licences, schedule 9 of the Act being effective in this connection. In respect of each operating centre specified in the operator's licence there had to be specified on the licence a person who was responsible for operation and maintenance of the vehicles normally operating from that centre. There was no specific recognition in the Act of the need for delegation. The following extracts appeared to give to a Licensing Authority power to acknowledge the need for delegated responsibility.

"Unless in any case the Licensing Authority in his discretion otherwise determines the person specified in any licence for the purpose of subsection (1I of this section (65) in relation to any operating centre of any person shall not be the same as the person specified for those purposes in relation to any other operating centre of that person, whether in that licence or in any other operator's licence which is then held by him."

Operating centres

Schedule 9--Transport Managers' Licences, paragraph 1, read. "There shall be such classes of transport manager's licences as may be prescribed." The number of operating centres from which local authorities operated varied widely, according to

numerous factors including type of authority, the functions performed, geographical location of urban areas and many others.

There must be many instances where fewer than 10 vehicles operated from one centre, and where the only supervisor was the first stage supervisor appointed in a dual capacity as timekeeper and supervisor of the services for which the vehicles were to be used. The occupant of such post could not be held responsible for the maintenance of vehicles, apart from ensuring that the instructions of the management were properly conveyed to drivers and that they were carried out as far as possible; he might, for example, make spot checks on tyres to satisfy himself that drivers were carrying out their instructions. Another person must, therefore, be specified in respect of maintenance.

Maintenance was frequently centralized, with an officer in charge of workshops and it was logical that the name of the workshops officer should be specified on the operator's licence appertaining to depots from which the fleet for which he was responsible operated. According to the Ministry of Transport, Licensing Authorities had discretion under Section 65 (31 to permit one licensed transport manager to control more than one depot where satisfied that the arrangements for this were satisfactory.

From the Minister's viewpoint there was also a case for requiring that the person who held ultimate responsibility must hold a transport manager's licence. In the case of a local authority this meant the head of the department responsible for transport. It was his duty to delegate efficiently and often to make financial decisions which affected the effective performance of other officers in the hierarchy. Classes of manager's licences had not yet been prescribed.

It was believed that operators licences would be issued towards the end of 1969: in the first instance no managers would be specified on the licences and it was not known at this stage when managers' licences would be issued.

The Ministry had made every effort to give those responsible for maintenance a clear picture of the form the test would take and of the methods to be used in examining the various items. Even so it was possible for a qualified mechanic accustomed to inspections to make mistakes at first. For example. the examiner at the testing station inspected springs while under vertical movement so even a fresh fracture would show which could be missed if the fleet examiner did not apply the same method of inspection.

"Insurance in public cleansing" was surveyed by Mr. J. S. Robertson (Municipal Mutual Insurance Ltd.) who said while it might be obvious that it was necessary for a public transport undertaking to insure against its legal liability to passengers it was not so obvious that a liability might arise out of the conveyance of workmen. If the men were being carried in connection with employment (during normal working hoursl liability for injury to them would be covered under the Employers Liability Policy but it frequently happened that they were taken home after hours, perhaps without authority.

If the men were injured in such circumstances the authority would have no cover under the policy. Provision should therefore be made to extend the policy to cover passenger liability in connection with these types of commercial vehicles which were suited to the conveyance of workmen. A Motor Vehicle Policy covering private cars should also be endorsed to cover passenger liability, in order to provide for the conveyance of visitors and council members.

Difficult position

Frequently in connection with refuse collection, employees moved vehicles without entitlement so as to enable them to get closer for loading or unloading. Often the first that the employer knew about this was when a claim was intimated for damages sustained to a vehicle or even an accident to a third party. The position was difficult because the vehicle was moved by the employee for the council's legitimate purposes and it was extremely hard to deny liability even though the employee might clearly have acted without authority or possibly against general in?tructions.

Accidents to tipping refuse vehicles mainly occurred through a driver forgetting to lower the body properly during his collection duties.

The majority of these accidents undoubtedly could be avoided and the problem had been discussed with the leading manufacturers. General approval had been given to a warning device which consisted of a lamp fitted at the top of the windscreen surround, just at the eye level of the driver.

This light came on by the action of a compression switch fitted under the body runner so that immediately the body lifted from the chassis frame the switch closed the circuit and the warning light appeared, remaining on until the body had been properly lowered again. With regard to existing vehicles the manufacturers would make the system available for fitting at a very moderate charge.

New developments on town centres and housing estates were producing problems for cleansing departments, not only in relation to refuse storage and collection but also in the cleansing of pedestrian ways, large paved areas, and traffic-free precincts where large mechanized equipment could not be used. Mr. A. Atkinson. who dealt with street cleansing. said he felt that shopping areas must be swept mechanically, probably outside shopping hours, but there was scope for improvement in the machines available. They should be of the driven type as it was unlikely that a man would be able to work a pedestrian-controlled mechanical aid reasonably for eight hours. However, it now appeared that more interest was being shown in the development of smaller sweepers. At least one new British machine of a more orthodox design as far as propulsion was concerned was about to enter the market.

One important aspect on parks and precincts was that of gully cleansing. With large areas to be drained it was essential that any system functioned correctly, the gullies being adequately serviced. Weight restrictions would not allow the use of traditional type machines but there were now a number of small machines available which catered for those areas which did not lend themselves to the operation of heavy equipment. These could be pedestrian-operated, trailer-mounted, or mounted on small electric truck chassis.

Traffic-free precincts and multi-level shopping areas would provide much food for thought for those who had the responsibility of cleansing these areas without being able to rely upon the traditional mechanical aids.

Discussion

Large hydraulic packers and transporting containers offered interesting possibilities in connection with refuse disposal, said Mr. J. R. Bonfer in his paper on "Development in container systems". The extraordinary growth in the number of users of demountable bulk container systems provided clear evidence of the economic advantages of the large-capacity collection containers. The more popular capacities for cleansing appeared to be around 10 cu.yd. and most were simple cubes in form with lids or side doors for loading.

Mr. Bonfer felt it fortunate that the development in the field of larger containers included the possibility of compacting refuse into them and he was surprised at the number of people in cleansing services who appeared unaware of the possibilities of thus improving storage capacity and collection methods. Contracting organizations had not let this development go unobserved and were already reaping many of the benefits. Several manufacturers produced compaction units for use with all containers, these generally consisting of special packs that formed the compactor itself and to which containers were clamped while the refuse was rammed into them.

Replying to the discussion on his paper Mr. Skitt said while it would be foolish pot to undertake an examination before submitting a vehicle for MoT tests he did not think that-this should always be made into a major occasion. Local authorities needed if possible, to have one individual to give driving instruction and another to test the drivers. In the smaller

organization where this was difficult there was much to be said for employing an independent expert to carry out such tests.

Following on comments made by Mr. Skitt regarding the use of work study in connection with maintenance, Mr. C. Hindle (Haringey) said the variety and complexity of a cleansing department's vehicles made evolution of a satisfactory 'incentive scheme a most difficult matter.

In discussion on Mr. Robertson's paper Mr. j: Scott (Edinburgh) said he had found that warning by lights and buzzers did not give infallible protection from such things as movement of vehicles with the bodies tipped. Where possible he preferred to have some device that would cut out the ignition in situations where trouble might arise.

His experience, said Mr, D. W. Jackson (Sunderland), was that road collisions resulted in far less damage to the cleansing vehicle than to a private car: that being so he favoured third-party policies.

Mr. Robertson commented that while any decision on the extent of cover was a matter for the local authority they had to remember that the hydraulics and other advanced equipment of the modern cleansing vehicle could suffer severe damage that might result in appliances being unable to carry out their scheduled duties for a period.

Training was one of the ways in which change could he made acceptable to employees, said Mr. J. Foster, who spoke on "Training in local government".