QUELLE surprise! Jack Heggarty has the shared chief executive job for Malvern Hills and Wychavon district councils and gets a pay rise while Chris Bocock is getting to retire early.

However, he also gets the added bonus of about £175,000 in payouts and pension top-ups.

Quite why council leaders felt they needed to play along with the charade that any other outcome was possible is an insult to residents' intelligence.

Like the wheelie bins and the South Worcestershire Development Plan vote this situation was engineered by the administration to railroad through what they wanted under the guise of perhaps saving £60,000 a year.

But this will cost the taxpayer (because all government money is taxpayers' money) £400,000.

Mr Bocock leaves a legacy that includes a mountain of wheelie bins, unsuitable and unwanted developments district-wide and one well respected councillor having been banned from council buildings.

I still believe a carriage clock would have been a far more suitable retirement gift than £175,000.

Sarah Rouse

Leigh Sinton