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Contents

1. Introduction

2. Management and Supervision

3. Resources

4. Financial

5. Refuse & Recycling Collection Services

6. Street Cleansing Service

7. Public Convenience Cleaning

8. Grounds Maintenance

9. Performance Indicators

10. Successes and Failures

11. The Year Ahead – April 2014 to March 2015

12. Partnership Working

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Introduction

April of this year (2014) saw the twelfth anniversary of Veolia operating the Rushmoor contract, the remaining three years concluding at the end of March 2017.

I have said the words before that my association as a Veolia manager with Rushmoor Borough Council has been, and continues to be a thoroughly enjoyable one. As I write this report, I recall the past winter’s appalling wet and windy weather. Collection teams in particular have endured some extremely miserable conditions with the quantity of wet and in particular windy weather. Despite the poor weather, bins and other containers are expected to be routinely emptied and the borough’s residents have come to expect that their collections will be on the same day each and every collection cycle and broadly at the same time. The street cleansing operation on the other hand also suffered the same fateful wet and very windy weather. First there was the mildness of November with the hope that the leaves will quickly fall after hard frosts but regrettably, that was not to be. Many of the borough’s leafy roads remained messy and choked in leaf mulch residue well into January of this year - 2014. Grave digging was another significant problem area for us within our landscapes operation. Of particular note is the Ship Lane cemetery as this location has proven to be very challenging during the winter months with the need to pump out water from newly dug graves and the essential need to support i.e. ‘shore up’ the sides for fear of collapse. The football season and the use of the borough’s playing fields also suffered due to waterlogged pitches. Oddly enough, there was no final rush for the local clubs to catch up at the end of the playing season and this probably reflects the current demand for such facilities nationally. Cricket in particular has seen a reduction in demand during recent years. We are being told by those meteorological experts that we can expect more of the same and possibly even more severe weather events in future years. Perhaps this past winter will be the new style of British weather that we can expect and whilst it is very disruptive and extremely miserable for most, I have to say that there is something to be said about the cold and

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crisp morning’s when frost forms and the subsequent bright sunny days that follow.

Management & Supervision Overview

Very little has changed locally during the past twelve months. The following charts show the local and regional structures as at April 2014.

Regional Structure During the early part of 2013, the new Veolia UK CEO (Estelle Brachlianoff) restructured the business and created five operational regions. The Rushmoor contract now sits within the South Region of the business and is administered from the Regional office based at Otterbourne, located just south of Winchester.

John Stockings Contracts Manager

Julie Adie Alfie Carver

Administration

Mark O’Shea Environmental Manager

Rushmoor Contract Local Structure

Barry McDonald Supervisor

Street Cleansing Ray Jones Supervisor

Refuse/Recycling

Andrew Bloomfield Contract Manager

(Landscapes)

Dave Wiffen Supervisor

Steve Betts Supervisor

Grounds Staff X 13

Grounds Staff X 12

Vehicles X 8 including:

Tippers Agricultural

Vehicles X 8 including:

Flat Beds Trailers

Beaver tails

Vehicles X 17 including:

RCVs for: Refuse

Recycling Green waste 7.5T Trucks

Van

Refuse & Recycling Crews X 40

Street Cleansing Staff X 25

Mobile & Static teams. Toilets.

Road Cleansing.

Vehicles X 15 Including:

Suction Sweepers Caged Vehicles

Vans/Mega

April 2014

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The following chart shows part of the municipal region that is headed by Ben Slater, he being the Regional Director and the manager that more recently oversaw the Integra, Hampshire Waste Partnership.

Ben Slater

Regional Director

Sarah Windless

PA

Roy Cotterill

Health & Safety

Manager UK

Financial

Department

Dev Devesar

Municipal Accountant

Municipal Operations StructureSouth Region

Keith Wylie

Health & Safety

Advisor

Paul Cunnington

General Operations

Manager

Rushmoor West

Somerset

Windsor &

Maidenhead

Basingstoke

& Deane,

Hart,

Wokingham

ElmbridgeWaverley Stroud Mole Valley

John

Stockings

Mike PennyColin Davies

Jason

Eldridge

Operations

Municipal &

StreetsOperations

Municipal &

Streets

Julie Lynch

Jason Jones

Operations

Municipal &

Streets

Operations

Municipal &

Streets

Operation

Municipal Operations

Municipal &

Streets

Operations

Managers x3

Operations

Municipal &

Streets

Paul Newman Gary

Stammers

Supervision

& Admin

Supervision

& Admin

Supervisors

Supervision

& Admin Supervision

& Admin

Supervision

& Admin

Supervision

& Admin

Supervision

& Admin

Operations

Municipal &

Streets

Training and Development Veolia continues to support training and personal development throughout the whole of the company and at all levels. From the original six apprentices having been locally recruited by Veolia, four remain in post. The office based apprentice has now achieved the NVQ level two qualification and is currently studying for level three with an anticipated completion during the summer of this year. Our remaining landscapes apprentice currently attends the Merrist Wood agricultural college near Guildford. He is currently working towards the ‘Landscapes Management’ NVQ level 2 qualification. If successful, he’ll then progress on to the level 3 stage. The two LGV (Heavy Goods Driving Licence) apprentices have now completed their training, both having passed the LGV test permitting them to drive and

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operate heavy goods vehicles up to and including 26 tonnes. Routinely, both apprentices drive some of our heavy vehicles. In addition to the apprenticeship training programme, around half of our employees have attended formal training sessions that include the ‘Driver CPC’ (Certificate of Professional Competence), First Aid and the ‘Carriage of Dangerous Goods’ (ADR) qualification. Numerous other training is carried out on an almost daily basis that includes subjects such as inductions, tool box talks and various other safety related themes.

Management of Health and Safety Veolia continues to maintain the position of being the UK’s largest waste operator with the industry continually looking to it to take the lead in safety and health. Over the past few years, the Health & Safety Executive has visited numerous Veolia sites within the UK. The results in general being that the company demonstrates good H&S processes and procedures throughout. It was in June of 2012 that two inspectors from the Health & Safety Executive visited Rushmoor over a two day period. Their visit to the Camberley depot (waste operation) and subsequent on site visits with the operational teams identified a number of issues primarily surrounding the collection of the dry recycling. Noise was very much on the Health & Safety Executives radar particularly the kerbside collection of glass. Following their original visits, measures were put in place and remain in place to help reduce the level of the exposure to noise experienced by the collection teams. Exploratory work via the Hampshire ‘CASH’ (Common Approach to Safety & Health) initiative continues in an effort to identify and reduce further, those noise levels and James Duggin from the council has been involved with this process during 2013. The Camberley depot continues to have safety issues. Within the recent past, we have seen an increase in traffic movements at the site mainly resulting from the intake of recycling from the borough’s of Runnymede and Guildford. Extra traffic movements within the depot gives rise to the potential for personal injury. As I prepare this report in early 2014, Surrey Heath B.C. plan to carryout additional upgrades to the site in an effort to reduce the potential for harm. One of those issues for us has always been the rough and uneven surface of the heavy lorry park. Surfacing of this area and the subsequent demarcation lining will go a long way towards tidying up and improving the facility. Also, with the plan to ‘beef

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up’ the lighting within the lorry park, that initiative will greatly improve the visibility for our drivers particularly during the winter months.

The continuation of the ‘drip feed’ of corporate and local safety information goes a long way to help maintain the safety culture that is needed as the waste industry within the UK, continues to be regarded by the H&S Executive (HSE) to have the worst safety record of any industry. That said, here at the Rushmoor contract during the later part of 2013, two of our loaders were struck by passing vehicles. When analysing these two incidents, despite the regular safety initiatives, both employees involved had misjudged the situation at the time resulting in them sustaining injuries that resulted in time being taken away from work. However, I can happily report that both made a full recovery in a relatively short period of time resulting in a swift return to work. It was also in 2013 that one of our very experienced landscapes operators became impaled upon the railings at our Grove facility in Farnborough, more of that within the grounds maintenance section of this report.

Quality Management The company remains committed to providing quality services to its customers, and has a policy for seeking external verification for the processes that help to deliver those services.

To this end, our operation at Rushmoor was accredited with the ISO 9001 quality certificate in December 2003. It was also awarded the 14001 environmental standard in June 2004. The 2013 audit at the waste depot in Camberley identified a number of routine type of issues that were remedied and closed within the required timescales

Unannounced internal audits continue to be carried out each year and whilst the Veolia ‘QHSE’ (Quality-Health-Safety-Environment) team has recently been through a major re-structure, internal auditing remains very much an integral part of the business.

Resources

Veolia Rushmoor continues to maintain a very low turnover of staff that is around 1% of a workforce just exceeding 100 employees.

Needless to say, this is a record that we here at the contract are very proud and it reflects the mood of the employees that in the main, are generally happy in their work. Needless to say, to have a stable and generally contented workforce helps with the deliverability of quality services.

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Another year on and during the later part of 2014 see’s our oldest employee reaching the age of 74. This particular employee continues to help keep the borough clean and is part of our cleansing operation, working in and around the local recreational park areas within Farnborough. Many within the council will have met with Terry Rogers, one of our suction sweeper drivers. Early in 2013, Terry reached what is quite a milestone as he’d achieved 50 years of service to the Borough of Rushmoor and at the same time reaching the age of 71 years.

Terry proudly showing off his Jubilee Award whilst on The Terrace at The House of Commons having received the award from Lord Watson of

Richmond CBE

Vehicle Fleet The current fleet is now some five years old and more than half way through their anticipated life providing the front line services. The fleet continues to perform reasonably well, however the resource having cost £2.2m in 2009 is still not without the occasional and sometimes very expensive problem. The complexity of the collection freighters and the environment in which they operate, can very quickly lead to problems. With the inevitably for breakdowns disruption to the service does occur however, in past years we have always, without fail continued to provide vital front-line services whether it be on collection, cleansing or grounds maintenance.

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Planned purchase - the ‘ GOUPiL HYBRID’ cleansing vehicle, potential

replacement for the Mega Truck in late 2014. Much is said about ‘climate change’ and how the human population is helping to influence that change. I’m sure that we all have our own views regarding this but whatever our personal opinions, there’s no getting away from the fact that fuel whether it be petrol or diesel is very expensive. When purchasing the GOUPiL hybrid vehicle, operating cost, efficiency and noise in particular will very much be an important consideration. Going forward to the new contract in 2017, my guess is that there’ll be more fuel efficient and less polluting vehicles and plant operating within the borough of Rushmoor, this can only be a good thing all round.

Depot

The depot at Camberley is owned by Surrey Heath Borough Council (SHBC) and to remind members, in 2009 Veolia’s landlord became Rushmoor Borough Council, with RBC’s leasing the site directly from SHBC. In previous reports, I’ve mentioned the state of the tired depot and the need for it to undergo significant refurbishment. Some work was carried out in 2009-10 that in the main, accommodated Surrey Heath’s changed collection arrangements and the on site temporary storage of recyclables. Commencing in early 2014, work to restore the vehicle maintenance facility started. The major refurbishment will in the main be confined to the area occupied by Biffa (SHBC contractor) and to accommodate their modern waste vehicles.

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As part of this latest refurbishment, the outside area occupied by ourselves for the heavy vehicles will be re-surfaced. For the past twelve years, large puddles form making it difficult to walk around our vehicles without getting wet feet and slipping on ice that may have formed during the winter months.

Still awaiting a visit by the surfacing machine – Recent photo of the Doman Road Site showing the uneven surface areas that fill with water and then

freeze during winter. There also remains the problem with the outside depot lighting and in particular during the winter. This next refurbishment phase includes the reinstatement of at least one of the lighting columns together with the installation of another plus a number of perimeter lights. It will be more than we have now and they will greatly improve the illumination of the parking areas. Over the winter of 2013/14, the roof area of our Camberley depot stores partially collapsed due in part to its age together with the vast quantity of rain that fell during the winter. I can report that the repairs took place earlier this year however, we still await the reconnection of the part of electrics within that building. Within last year’s report, I drew members attention to the fact that we had been targeted by fuel thieves and therefore stopped using the depot tank choosing instead, to use the local fuel stations, I can now report that in August of 2013, the 36,000 litre tank was relocated to another Veolia location within the Kent area.

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Residual Waste Collection Whilst the residual waste operation is by far the largest and probably most contentious of all the services we provide at Rushmoor, it continues to benefit from a relatively low ‘missed collection rate’. The target having been originally set by the Council and Veolia at 40/100,000, we consistently enjoy an average miss collection rate that is around the low to mid twenties. The majority of our collection staff remain full time employees. From the outset of the contract, I introduced a local policy of one driver to one vehicle, that way, the level of misuse and abuse historically suffered to our fleet remains relatively low as it provides the incentive to ‘love and look after’ their own vehicle. I believe also that maintaining consistency of loaders on each round benefits not just the fleet, it helps also to develop and maintain a sense of pride in all that they do whilst at work. I will mention the weather again. This year differed from recent years as rather than being extremely cold, this year it was extremely wet. As a collection loader it’s relatively easy to get warm when the weather is cold whereas when you are soaked through, until the jobs done, there’s no getting dried out.

Recycling Collection Service The recycling collection service both ‘dry and green’ waste continues to perform relatively well. The summer months for green waste is where we experience more complaints for an assortment of reasons ranging from, containers not presented for collection on time to overweight containers whether they be bins or bags. Since their introduction, the brown wheeled bins for green waste have proven to be very popular with local residents and over 5,000 which represents over 60% of the total choosing them as apposed to the single and re-usable sacks. The blue recycling containers do still suffer within some areas of the borough from contamination. This is often the case where flats and other multiple occupancy properties are serviced by the larger 1100 litre containers. That said, there still remains a good number of individual properties that either do not bother to present their bin for collection each fortnight or they routinely contaminate it with normal household and green wastes. Where this occurs, we finish up by emptying the bin as waste, a great pity I must say. By way of a reminder, in July of 2012, we introduced the collection at the kerbside for household used batteries. Members will recall from my previous reports that this was an initiative introduced free of charge to all borough residents.

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I can report that around 4 tonnes of batteries were collected during the past twelve months, not a significant number I must say, but much better for them to have been recycled than just thrown away with the general waste.

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

To

nn

es

Total Waste Collection2002 - to date

Refuse

Recycling

Streets

The above chart shows the very gradual reduction of waste collected and a

general recycling increase since the contract commenced in 2002.

Street Cleansing Services

The past autumn and winter’s weather, with its relentless rain made a very difficult job even more so when it came in particular to the annual leafing programme. The normally loose and free flowing leaves quickly turned into mulch making the blowing and hand sweeping all the more difficult and so much so, it wasn’t until late January of this year we finally completed the leafing task. It certainly put those leafing team members we recruited via the Council’s ‘skilled up’ initiative to the test. Regrettably the work outside and in all weathers was not to everyone’s taste. That having been said, we will once again be taking an active interest in the councils initiative with the view should an opportunity arise, recruit full time staff. Much the same problem was experienced by our other street cleansing teams, small pieces of litter will stick to the pavement surface when wet, making it difficult to shift and pick up.

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I always believe that cleansing is one of our hardest jobs to undertake due in part to the physical effort needed to push a broom and the expectation of the local taxpayer, it makes for a difficult service to deliver and achieve true customer satisfaction. Once again, the two main town centre areas of Aldershot and Farnborough continue to be challenging and in particular, the very large quantity of discarded cigarette ends. These cause us problems when they finish up in the joints and cracks of footpaths, doorways and behind and under street furniture; in other words, all of those most difficult areas to cleanse.

There appears to be a culture that it is perfectly acceptable to throw used cigarette ends to the ground and this is particularly noticeable, when sat in a car and stationary at traffic lights.

Smokers just throw their used ‘butts’ out of their car windows with the expectation that someone else will clean up their mess. To help overcome the littering problem, during the later part of last year, we introduced two ‘suction barrows’, one for each town centre. They were specifically purchased to help deal with the problematic cigarette ends that accumulate in some of the less accessible areas.

During the past year and collected by our cleansing teams, in total there were 2,000 tonnes of street cleansing arisings picked from the boroughs roads and pavements along with 250 tonnes of leaves. Just think of it like this, the average household within the borough produces around 15 kilogrammes of residual waste and recycling each week. We on the other hand have been collecting 40,000 kilogrammes each and every week from the streets of Rushmoor, it really does make you wonder where it all comes from?

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One of the new suction barrows being used at the library in Aldershot Town Centre by one of our town centre cleansing operators.

Public Conveniences

Having changed from the two teams of two operators in recent years to the two single ones now working on this service, both members of staff go to great effort to keep the boroughs facilities clean and ready for the public to use. However, it never ceases to shock what some people regard as fun and it’s therefore vitally important that we employ dedicated staff to deal with the unsavoury situations we occasionally find.

Whilst some of the facilities are getting rather old and tired, I believe that the facilities within Rushmoor are some of the better ones locally and within Hampshire.

In the main, Rushmoor is fortunate in that little serious vandalism take place within the public conveniences however, there are occasional incidents that we aim to rectify as quickly as possible.

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Another One Cleaned – The Rectory Road Facility in Farnborough receiving one of it’s twice daily attention.

Grounds Maintenance

The 2013 grass cutting season got off to an excellent start, in that the routine work progressed well and without incident.

Members will understand that a large portion of our summer work is the cutting of the highway verges and park areas. The contract requires that most grass areas should be 75mm (3”) or less.

It is fair to say that whilst the weather conditions remained unremarkable even though we had the very warm spell in July, very few complaints were received as we’d been able to keep on top of the cutting. Floral decorations were again very good, so much so that the Aldershot Crematorium was awarded another ‘Gold’ in the South & South East in Bloom competition with Aldershot Town Centre, receiving a Silver Gilt’. Here within Rushmoor, we are very fortunate that each year, local taxpayers and visitors to the area comment positively on how good the roundabouts, hanging baskets and the railing trough displays look every summer and 2013 was no exception.

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Turning now to a different subject and a very serious one. It was last August that one of our ‘time served’ employees became impaled upon the railings at the entrance to The Grove depot in Farnborough. Whilst cutting frayed branches of a tree situated within the depot, he lost his footing resulting in his right leg above the knee becoming impaled upon one of the perimeter railings. When considering that the Hampshire Air Ambulance was involved in taking the injured employee to Southampton General Hospital, our employee was extremely fortunate that the injury was little more than a very serious puncture wound. He made a remarkable recovery and returned to work within a two-week period, which bears testimony to his determination and dedication.

The Grove facility in Farnborough, the very scene of the incident.

Performance Indicators The following charts show Veolia’s waste collection performance (missed bins) during the past twelve months for our residual and recycling collection operations. The first shows both total missed bins and the missed bins per 100,000 listed by driver, the second chart shows total misses per month.

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COUNCIL REPORTED MISSED BINS LOG APR - APRIL 2013 -MARCH 2014

APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR

Yr to

Date

ROUND DRIVER

1 J JONES 2 3 7 3 1 3 6 4 1 3 3 2 30

2 S DAY 3 6 5 5 2 6 9 6 4 5 5 2 46

3 P SHARPE 4 5 6 4 3 8 10 6 4 5 5 4 50

4 M LODGE 2 6 5 6 2 5 9 5 3 4 4 4 43

5 M DORE-WRIGHT 3 8 6 7 2 8 11 5 5 7 9 5 55

RY 1 Dry/Glass J JOHNSON 5 4 9 8 10 8 5 7 4 4 4 5 60

RY 2 Dry/Glass H PUN 8 7 10 10 16 12 5 10 4 6 6 6 82

RY 3 Dry/Glass B SHELLEY 8 5 9 10 13 15 8 9 4 7 12 9 81

GREEN S REED 17 19 18 32 5 12 16 14 10 15 10 22 143

Total 38 35 46 85 54 77 79 66 39 56 58 59 590

Missed per 17.94 20.7 23.58 27.95 16.91 24.15 26.89 20.7 12.83 17.6 19.06 18.5 19.62

100,000 Collections 100000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000

APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR

Missed Bins 52 63 75 85 54 77 79 66 39 56 58 59

Days 20 21 22 21 22 22 20 22 21 22 21 22

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Apr-13 May-13 Jun-13 Jul-13 Aug-13 Sep-13 Oct-13 Nov-13 Dec-13 Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14

To

tal

Mis

sed

Bin

s

The target figure was originally 50 and then eventually set at 40/100,000 missed collections, the number having been set at the start of the contract in 2002 and is still today regarded as a reasonable target to achieve each year. There have been a significant number of properties built since the contract started, from the original 35,000 in 2002 to nearly 39,000 today. We have managed to accommodate this growth within our existing resource however, we will shortly be at a tipping point where we will need to put into place additional resources to cope with the workload. This is particularly the case given the Aldershot Urban Extension that’s likely to start a little later this year. Turning now to the cleansing of the borough, I regularly point out that when we clean a street, it immediately starts to dirty whether it be from dropped and wind blown litter or detritus falling from passing vehicles. This ensures that there’s always the need for us to clean. Town centres will always remain difficult to keep clean. The recent infrastructure upgrade within parts of the Aldershot and Farnborough areas has helped our cleansing operation, as some of the litter traps have been engineered out and the walking surfaces are such that they are easier to clean. It is with some pride that I can report that Rushmoor continues to achieve an average Best Value Performance Indicator (BVPI) score around 5 to10% - this being regarded as being quite good. Whilst we have no formal mechanism to measure our landscapes performance, the fact that each year the council receives very positive feedback from local residents and visitors regarding the floral decorations, indicates to me that there is a good deal of satisfaction with our general performance.

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Successes and Failures We’ve provided the services to Rushmoor now for over 12 years. Noticeably in more recent times and particularly during the winter months, the weather has been less kind to us than when we first started in 2002. During the most recent four year period, snow has fallen that has been sufficient to cause us serious operational problems. However, at the end of 2013 and into this year, heavy and persistent rain caused problems for our landscapes operation. Of particular note were the flooded grounds including the playing surfaces within many parks and open spaces. Even now after some months have passed, there still remains pockets of the flooding residue within a number of areas.

Missed green waste collection continues to cause me some concern with a relatively high number of missed collections when compared to the residual and dry recycling operations. With this particular service being at an additional charge, residents rightly expect first-rate service and they quickly call the council if there are any issues. Unfortunately, some residents forget to renew their subscription, they are then removed from the collection sheet resulting in their bin/bag being missed. These residents will usually then renew their subscription with RBC and service can resume as normal. In previous years, Veolia (Teamrushmoor) has supported at no cost to the council, local charitable events and this past year has been no exception:-.

Events supported included:-

Mayors Ball.

The Community Matters Partnership.

The Spring Clean.

Donkey Derby.

Rushmoor Access Group.

Kids Out.

North Camp Village Fair.

Picnic in the Park.

Mayors Charity Golf Tournament.

Rushmoor In Bloom – Open Top Bus costs (2013).

Rotarian Christmas Float.

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Cheque presentation in August 2013 at the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice. It’s worthy of mention that once again, financial assistance for the open top bus (2013) was forthcoming with the £1,000 cost being donated by Veolia. If it wasn’t for our assistance, the event may well not have taken place. Going forward, Veolia has agreed to support this service once again albeit not to it’s full cost for this year - 2014.

The Year Ahead April 2014 to March 2015 The green waste service continues to be as popular as ever, particularly since the introduction of the brown wheeled bins. The bin quantity now represents over 60% of the total. Of the 30,000 tonnes of waste collected each year by Veolia within Rushmoor, kerbside glass collections remain relatively static at a little over 6.5% by weight. Recycling contamination as I’ve mentioned remains a problem. Continued efforts by the council and ourselves will continue on in an effort to grind this problem out. Communal bins are very often where the contamination occurs, this despite much effort on behalf of the council to put a stop to it. Over the coming year, we will work with crews to improve detection of contamination in recycling bins and take action to inform residents of their

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mistake. This information will also be passed up the line so that the Council is better able to tackle this problem directly with residents. Re-fresher training is planned for the middle of 2014 with the recycling collection staff in an effort drive down the quantity of contamination. A power point presentation is being prepared in conjunction with the Council for delivery to our staff, followed by an interactive discussion that will all help in getting the message across and ultimately drive down the relatively high level of contamination that is currently running in excess of 10%. During the later part of the Spring (2014), I plan to purchase and allocate a replacement of the pedestrian controlled sweeper that will be allocated to the Aldershot town centre. Whilst the current machine is now showing signs of age, it is still operational therefore, rather than send it for scrap, it’ll be re-allocated to our Rushmoor landscapes operation for them to put it to good use within the crematorium and cemeteries within the borough. Last year for this, I budgeted to replace the ‘Mega Truck’’, this vehicle being of plastic and aluminium construction and used for the cleansing duties within the Farnborough parks and open spaces. Regrettably five years on from its original purchase, it has become too costly to maintain and is therefore parked up within the depot awaiting disposal. During the later part of 2012, we trialled two battery powered vehicles. Regrettably the range of those trial vehicles was such that they literally ran out of power. In part this was due to the operation being based at Camberley and therefore 10 unproductive miles needed to be travelled each day. The latest thinking is to look again at the battery option with the potential of overnight storage and charging being within the confines of the Farnborough Recreational facility in the Farnborough town centre.

Partnership Working We all know how financially tough the operating climate is particularly within local government. The private sector fairs no differently with equal financial pressures. Locally Veolia at Rushmoor continues to share some of the financial pain. The company willingly reduced its profit take and extended the vehicle and plant write down period from 7 to 8 years until the contract end in 2017. In addition, there was agreement to the removal of significant works from within the contract specification for the grounds maintenance operation that netted further reductions in the contract value.

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In total, over £200,000/pa of savings were identified with most of those being implemented from the beginning of April in 2011. It is worth mentioning that those savings are ongoing - year on year. Finally, we continue to respond positively to requests for assistance from charities and other bodies. Transport and labour to deliver essential items or to collect waste at the end of events is a must for some charities.. Knowing that much good is done by a small number of charitable organisations and in an effort to recognise this fact, we at Veolia are very pleased to be of assistance in helping raise money for good causes whilst at the same time providing some benefit to those local taxpayers.

John Stockings, Contract Manager, Rushmoor - Veolia.

Ben Slater, Regional Director, Veolia.

Paul Cunnington, General Manager, Veolia.