Wheelie bin dispute rolls on (From Malvern Gazette)

Wheelie bin dispute rolls on

8:50pm Thursday 7th February 2013 in News By Tarik Al Rasheed

A ROW over the introduction of opinion-splitting wheelie bins in Malvern continues.

Malvern Hills District Council is pressing ahead with plans to give people green plastic bins for their recycling, which will be emptied every fortnight. The existing weekly black bag collection for general refuse will continue unchanged.

But one member of the controlling Tory party is adamant that the change has been pushed through without the authorisation of the councillors who represent members of the public.

Councillor Tony Warburton maintains that councillors only agreed to pursue £1.67 million government funding for waste collection during a vote last year, and that they should have been consulted before any changes were implemented.

Council leader David Hughes dismissed the suggestion, stating the council’s intentions were “explicit” and that the only talk of it returning for further discussion was in the event that the government funding bid had failed.

Coun Warburton has also said suggestions by the council’s head of community services Ivor Pumfrey that the consequence of not switching to wheelie bins for recycling would spell the end of weekly black bag collections.

“I want to say, categorically, that no such suggestion has ever been made nor has the possibility ever been discussed by councillors,” he said. However Mr Pumfrey said that failing to introduce wheelie bins would “inevitably” have meant a switch to fortnightly general refuse collections.