Paying twice for a council service is just rubbish

I’ve always been happy to pay my fair share towards the cost of providing public services.

It’s a warm feeling knowing that one’s council tax has contributed to filling those potholes in our street; helping those little kiddie-winks get an education and even providing grants for obscure charitable causes.

Yes, I’ll pay my share. But I don’t like being asked to pay for something twice. Which is what will happen with our waste collection from early April.

If we want the local council to take away our garden/ green waste it’s going to cost us £40 a year extra.

I know that’s not a great deal of money, even for a pensioner like wot I am, but come on – it’s just not right.

We have three different coloured bins – black for general (landfill) waste, blue for recycling and brown for garden. They all used to be collected every week but switched to fortnightly several years ago, with black one week, blue and brown the next etc.

But of course halving the service did not mean cutting the council tax. Oh no, that still increased the year the waste collection was cut back.

Whilst my friend might say my principles are somewhat confused, I object to this decision on principle. Mainly because I can see it being the slippery slope to more and more additional payments for households as local government finances tighten further in future.

Want to use the library (yes, we still have one)? That’s an extra £50 a year, please. Want your street cleaned regularly? That’s an extra £30 a year. Want those well-kept gardens in the town maintained? That’s an extra £50 a year.

It sounds ridiculous, I know, but it could happen.

Anyway, back to the brown bins. I’m going to cough up the extra dosh. After all, we have an awful lot of green waste (too much to self-compost) and over 12 months it would cost more in fuel to take the waste to the local site.

But it’ll still annoy me. Mainly because the green waste we now have to pay extra to have taken away is composted by the council and the compost used by local farmers, landscapers and horticulturists. Who undoubtedly have to pay for it.
Mind you, there is Brucie bonus for all us council tax payers – if we pop along to our local Household Waste Recycling Centre we can buy bags of compost – made from materials that we have paid to have taken away. You couldn’t make it up.