Street cleaning in Bonn Residents criticise new Bonnorange regulations
Bonn · Bonnorange is introducing a new system for street cleaning in Bonn. Residents affected by the new cleaning categories are fighting back. The company is responding to the complaints.
Residents are putting up resistance after Bonnorange divided some Bonn streets into new cleaning categories on January 1 this year. According to the municipal waste disposal company, which is also responsible for street cleaning and winter snow clearance, about 2,000 households have received mail because in future they will be responsible for cleaning the roadway in front of their property themselves. “So far we have received about 100 complaints through various channels,” said the head of Bonnorange, Kornelia Hülter. She says that this will be looked into and the situation improved if necessary.
The editorial staff of the General-Anzeiger have received many letters to the editor following the letters to the residents and the reporting. “The reason that street cleaning will no longer carried out because we live in a clean street is surely a joke. Our street is heavily used from Monday to Friday by employees of the rehabilitation clinic and the Kolfhaus old people’s home looking for parking spaces”, writes reader Renata Zerbel-Lesche. Renate Müller, who is 86 years old, considers herself and others barely able to clear the pavement and the road: “People here are either employed or old and it is already difficult to get the tenants to clear the pavements.”
Heinrich-Dietrich Dieckmann doubts whether it really saves money to make the residents responsible: “The announcement that the city will save on cleaning fees is window-dressing. It is disproportionate to the additional costs of commissioning appropriate cleaning services, which many people will have no alternative but to do.”
In Heiderhof, where many residents are now responsible for the pavement as well as for the road, signatures are being collected. At Ahornweg, residents have joined forces and written a letter to Bonn's mayor, which says: “In our view, a joint on-site inspection by Bonnorange and the affected residents is absolutely necessary to examine which cleaning measures are proportionate. In Hardtberg, politicians have intervened in time: There, almost the entire Brüser Berg was to fall under the responsibility of the local residents. In the district council, however, the politicians voted against the proposal, which caused the changes to be withdrawn.
(Original text; Nicolas Ottersbach, translation John Chandler)
