RECENTLY Cheshire West and Chester Council's responded to criticism of the plans to change the waste collection service.

The proposals have divided opinion across the borough and another residents has written into us to share his views.

In response to CWAC deputy leader, Cllr Karen Shore's letter, Mark Sutton raised more concerns.

He said: "I read with interest your response (‘Doing nothing not an option’, Opinion, June 24) to the letter of CJ Moore and would now like to offer some responses and questions regarding your comments.

"You stated that ‘The responses we received showed us that people in our borough wanted more opportunities to reduce the amount of waste they produce and more opportunities to recycle’, but you have not published the full results of the survey.

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"Without that full disclosure it will be difficult for residents to understand the route you are taking. Indeed some residents may believe you are merely being selective about the results in order to bolster your plans. 

"The issue of commercial waste appears to have been omitted from the survey and my understanding is that commercial waste is not sorted, but 100 per cent is sent to landfill.

"I would be pleased for clarification on this point together with CWAC’s details on how the areas commercial waste tonnage compares to residential waste tonnage.

"You refer to ‘providing a service that is fit for the times we live in, we must provide the best value for money for the council taxpayers of the borough’, but you have yet to publish how much CWAC received from Kier to end their contract and where that money was spent or allocated.

"Furthermore there appear to be no details on the capital cost of providing all the new bins or the new wagons. The best price I can find for bulk buy 220 litre wheelie bins is £36.60 per bin.

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"Assuming 160,000 properties that would cost £5.85m to supply one new bin each, but CWAC are looking at two extra bins, which pushes the cost to £11.70m.

"In addition, using Manchester as an example, they have just bought 27 electric waste collection wagons at a total cost of £9.80m, but that is only half of their fleet. This equates to £363,000 for each vehicle and if CWAC has only 20 vehicles, the total for wagons is £7.26m.

"This now brings the proposed capital costs to nearly £20m. Whereas the ‘income’ generated by the new garden charge comes to only £6.4m – a shortfall of around £13.5m on an authority which has already stated has an £83m deficit.

"Later in your letter you ask ‘Is it right that those residents who do not generate garden waste continue to subsidise those who do?’ and I would suggest this is a very poor argument as it may open a very large can of worms.

"I do not have children in education, but I still pay. My neighbour does not drive but still pays for the upkeep of roads. The list goes on and on. But more importantly the whole ethos of council tax is that we all share the costs of the providing the services in the local community.

"You appear to justify the garden waste charge by stating ‘Many other councils across the country already charge for garden waste collections, including our near neighbours’. This is not relevant to the argument or discussion as councils are there to provide the services for their residents, not merely follow other councils.

"If we all follow each other, we may as well have a central government decision on local services. The subject of fly-tipping was included and again you state that there was no ‘epidemic of fly-tipping’, but you have shown no evidence to substantiate your statement. 

"The most important issue is how much it costs CWAC to remove each tonne of fly-tipping against how much it costs to collect each tonne of household waste. The decision to only collect garden waste during the spring, summer and autumn is environmentally unsound. 

"As CJ Moore’s letter states it is illegal to prune or cut down trees and shrubs when animals are nesting, but you have chosen not to respond to this point. 

"In conclusion, I feel there is little or no substance to the points you have made and it will do little to appease CWAC residents and I urge the council to be more open and honest before committing what I (and probably many others) feel is vast sums of council tax revenue without the full facts."