THE fiasco of Wiltshire Council's disregarded consultation over the garden waste collection service (Journal, February 12) is only outdone by their ridiculous new plan to charge £40 per year to continue it.

It is plainly ill-considered nonsense from an incompetent administration.

Since only six per cent of 15,000 respondents said they would be prepared to pay £35 for the service (i.e. 900 households) it is difficult to see how the new charge will raise the £800,000 the council estimates.

It is equally difficult to see how it will operate to save any money, when the collectors will have to do the same round to visit those who do choose to pay, presumably stopping every time they see a green bin to check on a list as to whether or not that household has paid up.

Cllr Rogers highlights the problem of increased fly-tipping this will cause, but this is not the only worry.

If more law-abiding citizens simply add garden waste into their black bins, this will increase the amount of landfill the council has to pay for, wiping out any potential savings of the new scheme.

All this is against the background of a Wiltshire recycling contract which should have gone out to fresh tender last year, but has been extended because the council couldn't get its paperwork together.

And a council which (unlike many others) does not bother to collect food waste, with the result that the Malaby Biogas plant at Warminster (which now supplies about two thirds of the town’s electricity) has to import food waste from Bath & NE Somerset Council.

There are two sensible ways for the council to save money from its waste and recycling operation.

The first is to increase, rather than decrease, the amount of recycling it does, so that it can reduce the vast amount of money (£4.5 million per year) it currently spends on landfill tax.

The second would be to reduce the huge increases in pay and allowances which the councillors and cabinet members voted to pay themselves last year, as they are clearly not worth it and that is one form of waste we could all do without.

Brig Oubridge

Salisbury