WILTSHIRE Council’s decision to reduce opening hours to 10am to 4pm for five days per week at Salisbury’s recycling centre combined with introducing an annual charge of £40 to take away household green rubbish is having a major detrimental effect on our local environment.

Also, businesses on Churchfields industrial estate are being adversely affected.

Salisbury and its environs is a growing community and we need a new purpose built recycling centre which caters for our needs in the 21st century. The current one is a third rate facility with now third rate opening times.

Can I suggest to senior Wiltshire councillors they make a visit to St Neots in Cambridgeshire, my former town, to see what can be achieved. The opening hours are 8am to 6pm seven days per week.

We now have more fly tipping, increased vehicular movements and queueing traffic which is making air quality even worse.

Air pollution is a silent killer and results in premature deaths with air quality in parts of Salisbury already exceeding EU guidelines.

Wiltshire Council’s solution to the problem of air pollution was to plant eight trees at the UTC on the Wilton Road - half of which have died due to not being watered! I have been waiting for over two years for a proper plan to address this issue.

I believe the costs to Salisbury residents/businesses are greater than the savings achieved and I call on Wiltshire Council to reverse these decisions and to get into meaningful consultations with the general public on a cleaner and fairer way to deal with the significant cuts in grant from central government.

MICHAEL POPE Salisbury City Councillor - Green Party