A retired South West London teacher was forced to slap number stickers on his block's bins as he was so fed up with them being dumped all over the place by the local council's contractor.

James Green says he has been ignored by Kingston Council and slammed his treatment as "outrageous" when he pays hefty council tax for his flat every month – the highest rate in London at £2,122 per year for most areas in Kingston for an average band D home in 2022.

The 65 year old told the Local Democracy Reporting Service "all hell burst loose" in summer when recycling bins kept at the back of McMillan House were emptied but "dumped all over the place" by the council's contractor Veolia on return for weeks – at the front of the block, on Surbiton Road or at neighbouring block Brooklands Court.

He said McMillan House has six recycling bins but was only getting one to three back – meaning he had to hunt for the rest. He said bins belonging to Brooklands Court were left "scattered" and quickly overfilled with rubbish, blocking the pavement and causing a "health hazard".

Mr Green, who has lived in the block for 30 years, became so fed up that he even paid for big number stickers to slap on the bins after writing to environmental health and getting no response.

Recycling bins outside McMillan House with the number labels from James Green. Credit: Charlotte Lillywhite/LDRS

He said: "They weren't even returning our bins even though the number was on – I was having to go next door and fish our bins out." He added: "It was chaotic so I then emailed environmental health and got no reply again from anybody but the situation did improve. 

"It's still not right but it's better than it was. But I think that as a council taxpayer I'm entitled to the courtesy of a reply – even if it's just a one-line email." 

Mr Green emailed environmental health, Lib Dem ward councillor Roger Hayes and council CEO Ian Thomas twice each and got nothing in return. He also emailed the council three times to raise a complaint about his treatment, with nothing back, and added that contacting the authority about bins has always been a "nightmare".

He said: "It's positively outrageous that you're not even allowed to complain – try complain and they will simply ignore you. I've been ignored all down the line, so the secondary complaint about the council is far more serious than the bins because it gets to the heart of the democratic process.

"These people are part of the democratic process and they're unaccountable – no private company could behave like that because they'd go out of business but the council's effectively got the monopoly."

He added: "I really do feel that people should know how Kingston Council is performing and the way in which they are treating people like me in a contemptuous fashion. It's wrong and especially as we have a really high council tax here." 

A spokesperson for Kingston Council said: "We take customer complaints seriously and are committed to delivering good services for our residents. We will investigate the claim that complaints were sent and not responded to. We are aware of a complaint received in August which was addressed with Veolia and apologise that the update wasn't shared with the resident."

A spokesperson for Veolia said: "We have been made aware of collection issues affecting Surbiton Road and are currently investigating these further. We apologise to those affected and will work with those concerned to ensure collections are carried out to our usual high standard. 99.64% of collections were completed in October in Kingston without a report of a missed collection. We are proud to deliver a high level of service to the vast majority of Kingston residents and would like to thank our teams for their hard work."