Green bins are serious issue for council tax payers

WITH reference to Cllr Tysoe’s letter Green bin change vital (June 19), I would like to make the following comments:

1. Cllr Tysoe states ‘To date, we’ve saved £8million per annum with little or no effect on services and quality.’ Surely this simply prompts the very obvious question of why the changes that are delivering these savings were not made sooner? If these changes were implemented just nine days earlier, it would offset the need to charge for any second green bin this year (based on the figures in his article).

Indeed, I now feel robbed, having previously been charged (and duly paid) Council Tax to contribute to the £8m inefficiency!

2. The councillor is, quite rightly, very proud having now ‘stripped out layers of management’. But I would be very interested to know the cost of this restructuring, for example, redundancy. More importantly, I think that we need a guarantee that these roles will not be replaced (either directly or more subtly) in the future.

3. Cllr Tysoe comments on the overall cost of collecting green waste increasing as a result of ‘higher levels of housing growth in the district’. Surely this is not a problem, but an opportunity as it will have a net positive impact on the council books when each additional house has to pay Council Tax.

Having read the many letters in The Hunts Post on the charge for a second green bin, I think that any councillor, opposition or not, who suggests that this scheme should be scrapped judges the public mood very well. Such comments may simply be heart felt representation of how the councillors think their constituents feel rather than a cheap populist statement.

When will HDC have a balanced budget again, and where is the additional £2m pa coming from?

PETE OLDFIELD

Chapel Street

Alconbury