Rid trash after Christmas, councillor asks

PAKENHAM’S messy front lawns during the Christmas season could become a thing of the past, if councillor Brett Owen has anything to do with it.
At Monday night’s council meeting, Cr Owen raised the issue, stating he had received a number of complaints in the lead-up to Christmas over the unsightly junk along Pakenham streets.
“Unfortunately the current program is divided into four sections, so we had waste for four to five weeks along Pakenham streets,” he said.
“We need to change that.”
He said while he understood it was hard to get the message through to residents that just because they saw hard rubbish on the nature strip in some parts of the town, it was not time to put out their rubbish.
“It might be three weeks away for their street,” he said.
He also said the council needed to steer away from Christmas time.
“It doesn’t look good, it’s very untidy,” he said. “Casey is doing theirs now which is a much more appropriate time – after Christmas.
“Unfortunately I don’t think we can do anything before the June collections, but going forward hopefully we can look at ways to improve it.”