Friday 30 September 2011

Bins take the spotlight as Tories pitch to Middle England

Someone said on twitter this morning that it seems that whilst the coalition can find 250 million for weekly bin collections,it scrapped educational maintenance allowance that cost 380 million.

Oh but hang on a minute,of course,kids can't vote.

The scrapping of weekly bin collections across the county including Manchester has galvanised middle England in a way that few other issues seem to.

The fact that it has been replaced,by better recycling provision incidentally seems to have been ignored.

On top of that this morning are the Transport secretary Philip Hammond's ideas for consultations on increasing the motorway speed limit to 80mph.Maybe another sop to the Jeremy Clarkson fans in the shires?

Anyway to the main story which sees Eric Pickles offering a sweetener to the blue rinse set ahead of the Tory Party conference,in which money will be offered to councils to reestablish the weekly bin rounds.

To be fair he told the Today programme earlier that

"What we'll be saying to local authorities is if your population want to have a weekly collection, we're only prepared to fund that if we can see an improvement in recycling, an improvement in efficiency and an improvement in procurement."

Remember that the fortnightly collection was in part a response to the fact that amongst Europe,this country sends far more waste to landfill and that by cutting off the easy action,we would recycle.

It appears that Pickles scheme was also initially overuled by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs amid fears it would undermine attempts to encourage recycling.

However the Communities Secretary won the argument at the cabinet table and the Tories will arrive in Manchester with at least the support of the blue shires behind them

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