bcpcouncil.gov.uk Reviews 18

I have tried all day telephoning the council tax office, probably 20 times, it's always engaged. Is it they are working from home? ie. Putting the washing on and walked the dog! We the customer are left wasting time and trouble, but hey! who cares certainly not our council.

I would like to give 5 stars for the reviews but unfortunately unable to, I'm actually shocked that they got 2 out of 5!

I'm originally from London moved down 7 years ago with the family hoping that our kids would sustain a better living?

I've never known for a council to be so poorly run, and for increasing their council tax to 7% high I can't believe that the government gave them the green light to increase it considering the cost of living being difficult as it is.
My mother and sister moved down here about 15 years ago, and we used to come down and visit especially during the air show! Things seemed cleaner and better businesses were booming to.

Now especially around the bournemouth town centre half of the businesses closed down and all boarded off, more cafes then London it seems lol and they are over priced!

But what got me here was to see the reviews, and how angry this council has got me, as mentioned my mother and sister moved here 15 years ago, but late last year my mother and sister both were given their section 21 as their landlords have decided to sale their property, so during that time they tried to seek assistance from the local council (BCP) and at the start they were so unhelpful they couldn't care less if they tried the service they received was very unprofessional.
Any ways, my mother being in her 70s with mental and physical health issues, and my sister being a single parent they really couldn't care less, so I helped them to get in touch with the local MP, which they did and had a little help from them... So right now my sister has to go to court to defend her case as of course she still hasn't vacated the property so the landlord had to take further action, my sister did speak to BCP and they have signed her to the homeless department but still have to wait and they recommended her to attend the court date and then return back to them!
As for my mother, a widow single... We haven't heard nothing and it's been on going for almost six months and at the moment her landlord has been pretty patient with what's happening he's seen the letters they have sent her and the council even contacted him asking if there is anyway to keep her on or finding out if the new owners would be interested to keeping my mother on as a tenant? Mental if you ask me, the landlord wants to sale up and he's planning to leave the country, but we're trying to be positive and hope things will turn for the better.

Upsetting, stressful and very disappointing how this council can just get away with the lack of service and charging what they want and we see no positive changes!

Poole council months to months, year to year getting worst. They don't care about nothing just the rubbish propaganda and the money. Not cleaning the road, any drain. Make a big traffic because everywhere roadworks at the same time. Parking machine didn't work properly sent a penalty I reported the problem they just don't care no answer just ignore. I can continue all day long etc....Brainless, useless branch.

I was told by the council my street is cleaned every day
LIE LIE LIE
It is not even claened once a year and has weeds growing a foot tall in the kirb and mud and soil inches deep, so do the lie about being swept every day as it is not just insulting my inteligence, it tells me the council are just liers and do not do their jobs correctly and lie to us - the ratepayers, when we complain.
MY STREET HAS NOT BEEN CLEANED IN OVER A YEAR AND I BET IF I LIVED IN SANDBANKS IT WOULD BE CLEANED WEEKLY.

No one answers website questions, they say get back in five days but do not.
No one at work in town hall, never answer phones. If you get through they are indignant you did not use website.
Half of them could be sacked to save our rates.

Roads are atrocious, service is non existent. Cycle paths smoothest thing in town, maybe because no one uses them. Useless mob.

phone in, number 1 in queue and holding for 10 mins, hung up! Absolutely rubbish service
123123, community waste, how about a direct line to tip?

2 hours in a call queue that changed from 33 people ahead of me to 40. I used to live in London, I thought nothing could beat it, but this is shambolic. What are we paying taxes and sky high council tax charges for? The local roads are full of potholes and danger to public as well as cars.

I'm not surprised with the poor reviews I've seen on here after my experience with BCP. All I can say is be careful when you go out at night in Bournemouth. Or better still, stay away if that's your choice for a weekend getaway.

BCP your disgusting not helping a disabled person with a ramp ,they have a brain injury after having 3 strokes and have lost their coordination and learning to walk should be the criteria ,this is nothing but discrimination to a person with disabilities shame on you

It looks like the people running the council tax benefits systems have no clue, by rushing to amalgamate 3 systems into one, has created a 16 week back log! This is Not acceptable.

Trying to access your council tax account is a nightmare, as this council deleted everyone’s passwords. Ok, I thought easy, request a new one then I can log into my account. Oh no, you don’t even get an email allowing you to create your new password. You get nothing, no response.

So the rush to get everything digitised, everything online etc. What happens when we have a power cut no access to anything! Not even money!

Since the creation of BCP, residents are getting a very poor service since the amalgamation of the new big is better council, saying services would improve, when they actually have not, now they want to create 3 new local councils, when residents don’t want layers and layers of bureaucracy. We need efficient solutions to problems, and less gimmicks that wastes council resources

Roads that are like driving on a bouncy castle, that have been patch up time and time again, when they should have been replaced.

No Airshow this year! Absolutely 100 percentage disgraceful, just shows that we don’t have the calibre of staff, running our council services. Maybe we the constituents should have an independent audit investigating our councils spending.

Housing:
When I lost my home, I contacted the Council for help. I was eventually assigned a housing officer (Jacob), but shortly after, he went on holiday and my case was simply left to rot. No one else picked it up. For two weeks I had no support at all and was forced to live in my car, borrowing money from friends and family just to survive. The lack of responsibility and basic human care in such a serious situation is unacceptable.

Council Tax & Support:
On the financial side, things have been equally disgraceful. Instead of support or understanding, the Council simply added charges, sent money to the courts, and handed my case over to enforcement — all while taking 3 to 6 months to respond to a single email, usually with the same copy-and-paste response that ignored the evidence I provided. There is no accountability, no compassion, and no attempt to treat residents as real people with real problems.

This Council is an absolute disappointment. The way they operate shows no empathy or basic decency. At times it feels like their employees are more interested in ticking boxes and squeezing money out of people than helping residents in genuine need. Honestly, every single person in charge should be replaced with staff who actually care, who have emotions, and who understand the human impact of their decisions.

At the bus stop infront of
O'Neill's
231 Old Christchurch Rd,
Bournemouth,
BH1 1JZ
a Gentleman(literally, Gentle Man, polite yet assertive) from the BCP Council cautioned a man for littering.
From what I deduced it was his 2nd polite warning. Sadly the man in his late 20's early 30's didnt return the gesture of kindness he received and responded in a rude and quite vulgar way, not humbly accepting responsibility for his misdemeanor and or rectifying it but challenged and perhaps even provoked the BCP Council man. It made me sad that the misdemeanor man couldn't just own up, apologise and remedy where he was clearly in the wrong

They charge you if you drop a cigarettes on the floor do not come to bormouth go to Cornwall because bormouth they steal people hard earned money with petty fine like dropping a cigarette on the floor £100 fine do not come here you have been warned they will give you a car parking ticket even in aldi car park they will steal your money stay away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Incompetence services, charge you for missed bin, typical BCP scamers in charge.

The trouble is...where do you start?!

As the title suggests, this council has been voted the most corrupt in the country by several independent bodies.
I'm not allowed to include website links in this review, but if you type BCP corrupt council into Google, it will get you on the right path. The website West Country Voices also has a piece about an independent survey that results BCP as by far the worst council in the U.K. This is just one example of many.

Let's start with refuse. Like many on Google reviews, the refuse department comes to the forefront of many complaints, from the individual refuse workers, all the way up to the staff at the end of the phone, and obviously the regular missed collections. BCP have regularly breached their own terms by missing bin collections after promising
to pick up the missed bin, only for this to be missed too. This has happened on regular occasions. From the refuse workers who collect the bins - on many occasions I have personally witnessed the binmen leaving the emptied bins almost in the road and away from the actual address it belongs to. I have on one occasion been in my car ready to reverse out of my drive when they have emptied my bin, only to leave it directly behind my vehicle, so that I have to get out and move it a few feet away. When pointing this out (I remained calm and polite) all I received was attitude. When calling to complain, the BCP staff member was unhelpful, resulting in me saying words to the effect of "it doesn't that much intelligence to re-place a bin to the side of the drive" lead to the staff member accusing me of discrimination??!!! Again I remained calm and polite until this point where he pushed me to the point of telling him to 'grow up and do his job properly'. This example is just one of many. The refuse department miss on average of a bin collection every other week.

Away from my local area, Bournemouth has become a rubbish tip, especially on the beaches in the summer. I was a beach worker for several years between Bournemouth and Poole, and I have never seen it so untidy and litter strewn as what it is now.

The BCP website itself is archaic and is the polar opposite of user friendly - for example, when logging in to try to manage missed bin reports or managing council tax, BCP has many different logins requiring different passwords to enter pages that just are not helpful.

The roads are another prime example (although many other councils are guilty of this too). For example, the roundabout that joins Hoburne Lane with Highcliffe Rd on the border of Christchurch and Highcliffe. There is often a queue of traffic waiting to enter the roundabout from travelling south on Hoburne Lane. The roundabout from this entrance splits into 2 lanes. The left lane is for left only, to go towards Highcliffe, which rarely gets used as there is access to Highcliffe Rd from higher up on Hoburne Lane via Copse Way. As a result, the right lane is for all traffic turning right towards Christchurch and Somerford or straight on for Mudeford.

If the left lane were to be used for left and straight on, this would dramatically reduce the build up of traffic (I have written to BCP about this, only to be ignored - surprise surprise!).

This along with pedestrian traffic light crossings after roundabouts, along with bushes overgrown at junctions or roundabouts, so when entering a roundabout, as a driver or cyclist, you are unable to see if the road is clear to enter the roundabout, resulting in slowing or stopping when not required, instead of keeping the traffic flowing.

Is it any wonder that BCP area is the 4th worst place in the U.K. for traffic? You can also easily locate that statistic too!

In summary, BCP are a trainwreck of an organisation that I know has been one of the main reasons for a few people that myself and my partner know, to move out to other areas such as Wimborne and New Milton (Dorset County Council and New Forest District Council).

Although I know it's not going to happen soon, but the sooner this council disbands (and goes back to the individual councils for each area) the better it will be for every resident.

They have no credible leadership, their children social care team is rife with excessive case loads, poor management and staff leaving . They do not treat families and children with any kind of consideration and respect. However they are very good at maintaining unlawful practices