Many of you will have noticed that changes are coming regarding refuse and recycling.

To simplify it: General Waste will be collected one week, recycling the following week, so fortnightly for each service. You will get a new wheelie bin for the recycling of paper, plastic and metal and keep the green box for glass. The green bag will be collected and recycled by the council. Garden waste service will stay the same.

The council has issued a list of questions and answers which I have posted on this site. Click on the Waste Collections link on the left of this page. or click here

My view: A few years ago when recycling was not as widespread I was against a move to fortnightly collections. Recycling has increased considerably reducing the amount of general waste. A lot of people have also started composting which helps to cut waste further. The new system has been shown to improve recycling rates in other areas of the country. This aspect has to be a good thing.

Since this scheme was announced last year and I delivered a leaflet mentioning it to nearly every household in the area I cover, I have received only two complaints about moving to this scheme and more than two supporting it. I know some people will have problems with this, but hopefully across the area most will find it to be easy to deal with. Where there are individual issues, please get in touch and I will see if I can help to address them. Most questions are answered by the council list in the link above. This change is going to save the council at least a million pounds a year when taken with all the other efficiencies from scarpping the district councils this should mean that other services are not cut back but as the Council is currently badly run by Labour, I don’t hold out much hope of that.

The council is offering subsidised compost bins and these can be ordered here including a buy one get one half price offer: http://www.getcomposting.com/