Gloucester City Council Review

On the 25th May 2019 I had booked a coach trip to visit Gloucester Tall Ships to be held in Gloucester Docks, a wonderful part of this City s old and historic part. Gloucester use to be part of the old Mercia Region of Great Britain. Gloucester is a city and district in the county of Gloucestershire it lies in the South West of England, of which it is the county town. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the southwest. The country's most inland port has seen a regeneration program in the last decade, more visibly at the city's historic docks.
The cathedral city of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire has its roots stretching back to Roman times and has continued to be an historic and important English city, boasting over 2,000 years of history. Gloucester Cathedral has been a place of Christian worship continuously for over 1,300 years, since Osric, an Anglo-Saxon prince, founded a religious house here in 678-9 AD. Gloucester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity in Gloucester stands in the north part of the city near to the River Severn. It originated in 678 or 679 with the foundation of an abbey dedicated to Saint Peter. This beautiful Cathedral is on par with Winchester Cathedral which I visited last year in 2018. The large stained - glass windows behind the high altar is an amazing sight. The cathedral was used as a location for filming the first, second and sixth Harry Potter films along with few other films including in 2008, the cathedral was used by BBC Wales as a location for the Doctor Who Christmas special and again in 2019, when it was used to film for an episode of series 12 of Doctor Who.
King Henry II granted Gloucester its first charter in 1155, which gave the burgesses ( the word Burgess originally meant a freeman of a borough of England or Wales or Ireland or burgh in Scotland . It later came to mean an elected or unelected official of a municipality, or the representative of a borough in the English House of Commons ) and thus came the same liberties as the citizens of London and Winchester. A second charter of Henry II gave them freedom of passage on the River Severn. The first charter was confirmed in 1194 by King Richard I. The privileges of the borough were greatly extended by the charter of King John, which gave freedom from toll throughout the kingdom and from pleading outside the borough.
Llanthony Secunda Priory is now a ruined and former Augustinian prior. It was founded in 1136 by Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, as a retreat for the monks of Llanthony Priory.Around the 16th Century it had become an independent priory in its own right and had become one of the largest Augustian houses in England at that time, owning 97 churches and 51 well appointed manors.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries ( The Dissolution of the Monasteries which is sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland ) the priory with its lands near Gloucester was granted by the Crown to Arthur Porter, MP for Gloucester. The Porters family and their descendants the Scudamores, used it as a mansion house until the Siege of Gloucester in 1643, when it became part of the Royalist camp. After the siege only outbuildings remained standing, used as a farmstead and stables
Today the remains are a grade 1 listed structure and are occasionally open to the public during Gloucesters Heritage Open Days which usually fall in September. However it was open and manned by Volunteers on this day of the Tall Ships venue.

Incredibly rude member of staff in the council tax department. When speaking on the phone I was told that she couldn t hear me (it was a poor line) so when I repeated myself I was told yes, yes, you ve told me that already .

Added to the fact that it took at least 6 attempts to get through until someone answered the phone....

Poor.

Awful! Phoned up to speak to benefits team, after waiting 25 minutes to get through, spoke to someone for 60secs and got cut off! Rang again, waited same time to get through, got through, cut off again!!!!
The main menu is an absolute joke! Gave up!!

Unhelpful and very rude, above reviews may not be serious but I am, very disappointed in the attitudes of staff, my job is stressful too but I'm not rude to people.

Appalling service! First in the cue. Waiting 20 minutes now. But foreign people go up first. Second class citizens in our own country or what!!

Garden waste not collected as the stickers for the bins had not been sent out a full month after the yearly direct debit payment had been taken from the bank. Apparently there is an amnesty til the end of October to allow for any delays on behalf GCC/AMEY but if those delays stretch in to November (we are now on 08th November) it s tough on the customer as the bin crews are under very strict instructions not to empty any bins without an-up-to date sticker. Got through to Tara in GCC customer services and she was very helpful and polite. It can t be easy being the one getting the complaints - and there must have been loads this week! As I was talking to the bin men at the time she got on to AMEY and arranged for them to be able to go back to my street to empty my bin - however they didn t empty all the others that hadn t been done. Surely there should be a better system in place at this time of year - how hard can it be to arrange for the stickers to be in the postal system a day after the payment is taken from you? Generally speaking we are happy with GCC - any complaints are usually surrounding the waste collections.

I always feel like an abused victim when dealing with this nonsense faux company called Gloucester City Council. You are made to feel insignificant, unimportant and stupid. I got pushed from pillar to post and given a different number to ring and when someone finally answered the phone, the service I received was so poor it had holes in its shoes.

I was spoken to rudely, treated with a dismissive tone and spoken at in a utterly discourteous fashion like i was putting them out, inconveniencing them and being the unwanted wasp at the council Summer picnic. You can hear the uninterest in the voices on the other end of the phone. You can easily imagine the phone operators eyes rolling back and them shaking their head. All because you had the nerve to ring them up and ask a question or, to try and clarify an answer, which in turn makes them click a few buttons with a mouse and make a few keystrokes on a keyboard, how dare you!

It's beyond shambolic to be made to feel like this. If it was a genuine business that needed to rely on customers returning voluntarily and by choice, then this place would have closed years ago for the lack of any acceptable service, let alone a quality one and it would be for the betterment of humanity I am willing to suggest, if it had of disappeared into the abyss of bad business and services.

There was one saving grace. I luckily came across a really good and genuine employee. He actually seemed to care about doing a good job. He had a good and helpful can do attitude and was empathetic to my frustrations created by the Council and their years of abject complacency and feckless mistakes over the space of two years. I later learned he was a former military man and carried his sense of duty and respect outside of the forces into civilian life, working there i still think he should be considered a trooper. The council and its fetid air of disgustingly poor service aligned with its unique tactic of borderline bullying, spreading fear and malicious intent and in my experience, all because of an error on their own part which i was able to tease out of them. .

Yes, you read correctly, Gloucester City Council are able to make mistakes, the veil of infallibility slipped from it's Gorgonesque physiognomy to reveal the true face of horror and so shocked was I at this admittance of fault and neglect, i almost turned to stone standing in my kitchen with a phone headset next to my ear. My worry for this gentleman is, that one good apple in the apple cart doesn't have the ability to turn all of the rotten apples good again, sadly it much more likely that he becomes henpecked into line, rank and file like the majority of other Gloucester City Council workers.

I do hope that this one quality employee with an infectious good will and positive attitude manages to overcome the odds and prove the proverbs wrong, and is able to permeate and pervade his character to every other employee of Gloucester City Council, but whilst i hold on to that slither of hope, i will not be holding my breath for fear of a self imposed suffocation.

I honestly do not look forward to having to go through this or something similar all over again next year. As it seems to be an ongoing trend of mistakes that occur annually, through no fault of my own that Gloucester City Council have the ability of creating, generating, producing and manufacturing. I suppose at this point I should really just be glad that at the very least, they've actually made something on their own, shamefully it's on par with what a small child makes. Very dirty, smelly and needs an adult to clean it up.

absolutely diabolical, never answer, never any help, at least they are consistent with how useless they are. I would rather blend my genitals than have to deal with this shower of sh1*

I have tried phoning 3 times each time 6 minutes to book a bulk collection of the 3 items I also e-mailed and had the response someone would get back to me within 7 days

Had a problem regarding council tax. I started to ring every phone line and couldn't get through to them. Meant to be open 9-5 on a Monday and not one phone line picked up

No one ever answers the phone, when I did get through to someone the phone rang fir ages, the I got an American dial tone and and answer phone. Crazy. What a waste of council taxpayers money

Tried to send photos of fly tipping in my local park (slightly concerned it could be asbestos) and after several attempts found the Email doesn't work - having spoken to dog walkers this morning its "been faulty for as long as they can remember"
Rang. And rang. And rang again. Automated farce
Gave up!!

I was overcharged on my Council Tax and am due a refund but trying to get this from them is a nightmare. Excuse after excuse for why it has not been paid to me. They were quick enough to threaten me with legal action if i did not pay them money i did not even owe them but when it comes to them paying back the money they owe people they dont make any effort. I am disgusted by their attitude, unhelpfull and rude on the telephone (that is when you can eventually get through to them).

Rubbish - never answer the phone and don't have an answering service.

If I could rate as zero stars I would. Completely unhelpful and don't seem to care about any of the residents and their issues, only that they receive their council tax without doing their jobs correctly.
I've reported several issues over the post few years, and the issues are still there because this council is too lazy to do anything about it.
Everybody leaves exactly at 5 to 5, and no managers/senior staff seem to work passed 3.
It's clear that money is being spent on unnecessary salaries rather than what its needed for.

I've had a few bad experiences with staff that have no empathy or any sense of wanting to help you. It makes you feel cheated out of your own money knowing you have to pay a council that employs such staff...if they were a business on the high street I would never step foot in there or spend a penny with them!!

Good luck getting through to anyone. ..I've been cut off three times. Where's all my council tax going apart from up every year.

Lady who answered the phone was unhelpful and rude.

Your switchboard and contact system needs a serious overhaul.

Sadly this Council has a bad reputation as regards homeless people. They even put up a poster on a bus shelter telling people not to give to the homeless.
This made National TV.
Also beware if you rent a room out in your home. If anyone complains about your home to the Council they will do their utmost to argue it should be registered as HMO and, if you don't play their game, you could face 20k fine.
Guess that's one way they get money out of Gloucester residents when they are a bit short!

Probably the most useless council to date. Just avoid living in Gloucester altogether

Place is a joke ....dont think anybody who works there can say they provide a service. Enough said.

Is very hard to rich them on the phone and i pay double council tax....

Getting through to them is hit and miss and the telephone payment system is an abdolute joke. If I had a choice of switching to a new council I would in a heartbeat.

However the lady I dealt with the second time was amazing and really helpful. Just annoyed I cannot remember her name. If most of the staff are like her then they just need to sort their systems out.

New waiting system and hours of opening are absolute rubbish!

I make the effort to separate my recycling from my general waste but today both my boxes of recycling were not collected. my neighbour s box, alongside mine was collected . A leaflet was left suggesting I may have put an item in that was not accepted, no idea what though. So the easiest solution is to stop separating the rubbish and put it all in the general waste bin (black)

Today I have had to come to terms with sexism, racism and blatantly rudeness!! We pay council tax, for them to refuse to take the recycling!! My biggest bill is council tax, and for what?? Arrogant male Amey employees to be so disrespectful any other member of the public would be arrested!! Disgusting

Multiple times I've been given conflicting advice and information from staff. Which normally means my housing benefit ( I work just don't earn much. ) Gets cancelled. Then they are so blase about it. "Oh it's not cancelled, it's only on hold." - You assclowns already pay it a month in arrears, so when you do this it pisses my landlord off.

Also says opens at 8.30 online - Just like this useless place to fail to update their opening hours. But if us Proles forget to update one bit of info out comes the cancel benefit hammer. ( Oh sorry - on hold - same difference as I can't access it to pay my rent. )

I have been dealing with these people for years, they are slow and incompetent to put it lightly. They almost never answer the phone and certain members of staff can be ignorant and extremely rude.
I have been in hot water on numerous occasions because they have misplaced paperwork I have sent them. How these people haven't been sued fro gross negligence is beyond me.

Tried calling them at 11.00 on a monday morning, only to hear a recorded message saying that the lines are now closed. Our phone lines are open netween 09.00 and 17.00 mon, tues etc.
What a waste of space they are. They need to get their act together. Saying that, they are so quick to to get on to us if we default in a payment.

I find it disgraceful that this council does nothing when you tell them of a very dangerous pathway used by cars and children. Accident waiting to happen. "We'll get back to you" then never doing so is not good enough when it comes to childrens safety!

I am homeless because I got Beaton up in Newton house and they have told lies about me the council have stopped the duty of care for me because of what Newton house told the council. But who can help me get my own place to live

Disgusting you could be waiting up to 25 minutes for people to answer the phone or the message to say they are busy and then get cut off! I cannot think of anything positive to say, I needed help with housing for me and my Partner only to be kept waiting for 6 months for a response!

Hopeless, you can never get through, then whilst waiting on the phone you just get cut off. Lived in Gloucester all my life, never known such a poor service. In the end l gave up.

Send out a leaflet saying Christmas recycling and bin collection had changed to a day later, only for the recycling collection to be done on our original date, why bother to tell people to leave their rubbish out a day later and then turn up as normal.

Trying to report it to the council on the following Monday is impossible, no one is answering the customer service phone.

Changed our bin week without even telling us. Thanks for that GCC! Tells us to sort the recycling into separate boxes (good idea you might think?) but doesn't actually provide anything to sort it into, so then of course refuses to take it. I was then told...."that's your problem love!" What do they actually want you to put it into? Our own huge plastic bags that will blow away and cause huge problems to the environment, wildlife etc??? I now have several weeks of carefully washed and sorted recycling that I can't actually dispose of unless I take it to the tip myself. Thanks for that GCC...is this going to go on forever? Maybe the whole idea is that they won't actually have to recycle anymore because it isn't even being collected! This council does the very least they can possibly get away with for recycling. So much less than other places I have lived. It makes me so cross that so many people do everything they can to help our environment but GCC does just what it can get away with and absolutely no more! Thanks GCC! Appalling and I would not recommend this council to anyone....unfortunately we still have to pay a lot of money for this appalling service. This is what happens when everything gets sold off and privatised.

It's really hard to get them to pick up the phone, you'll have to call several times in a row, but once they pick up the phone they are very helpful and pleasant!