Why is Wandsworth Council so determined to encourage flytipping?

My wife and I are about to move and hired a van to take several large household items to the Western Riverside Authority dump in Smuggler's Way. A simple enough process, one would have thought. However, it involved picking up the van on the Saturday, getting a letter from the council to say we were not a commercial operators and, finally, applying for a visitor's parking permit.

Getting the letter was easy enough but the parking office was the opposite. After half an hour, we were handed the wrong visitors' permit.

We were then stuck waiting for another 15 minutes until a badly-dressed, inarticulate youth replaced it with the right one with no hint of an apology for Wandsworth's cock-up.

To cap it all, when we eventually arrived at the dump, we were told it was closed and we would have to go to Battersea instead. Why couldn't someone at the council have told us?

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May 30, 2003 15:30