Exciting news folks, I’m writing a new Broadway musical. It’s called Rats and it’s set in an alleyway off Perth High Street.
Over the course of four patience-testing hours, 23 colourful characters will take turns to dance and sing about Perth and Kinross Council’s waste management policy.
James Corden has already signed up.
It’s inspired by the photographs we published last week of a rubbish-filled lane in Skinnergate, like Diagon Alley but made out of bins.
Piled high with cardboard boxes, old suitcases and carrier bags full of festive detritus, it was no wonder residents and businesses around the thoroughfare were complaining.
These towers of tat were left rotting for days longer than normal, because council workers couldn’t get access.
Some have leapt to the conclusion that this is evidence Perth and Kinross Council’s new bin storage plan for the city centre isn’t working.
Towards the end of 2019, the local authority introduced 39 skip-style containers for residents.
The scheme is meant to end years of complaints over household waste being left for collection on the kerbside, only to be torn apart by gulls.
In the few weeks since the new bins were introduced, there has been noticeably fewer incidents of city centre streets strewn with scraps. Plus, other than the incident in Skinnergate, the local authority has assured it has received no other complaints about the new set-up.
It’s maybe too early to say whether the scheme has been successful or not, but we are starting to see the local authority taking a tougher line on illegal dumping.
That was a pledge made last year after The Courier revealed that no one had been prosecuted for flytipping in the area for nearly a decade.
The new bin regime in the city centre could see that statistic change dramatically, with unauthorised bin bags out for collection now officially classed as flytipping.
The state of Skinnergate was an embarrassing start to the year for Perth and Kinross Council, but it would be wrong to think it paints a complete picture of the extensive work being done to get to the root of the city’s waste woes.
Is that the time? Better go. Still need to finish off Idris Elbas’ ears.