A WORKING party set up to discuss Worcester's wheelie bin collection service has still not met - four months after calls were made for a meeting to take place.

Worcester MP Mike Foster, a Labour whip, has criticised the delay and city council chiefs are at loggerheads over who has been holding up the process to decide on what focus the review will take and who will chair it.

Mr Foster, who has written to chief executive David Wareing for an explanation into the delay, said: "Back in October they promised a review of how waste is collected from our homes, yet four months later they haven't even met. The biggest joke is they called it a working party. It's about time they made a start at doing some work."

We reported in your Worcester News last October how council leader Simon Geraghty called for a cross-party discussion on wheelie bin collections now operating throughout the city.

The people of Worcester have always been promised that the group, which set the project in motion more than two years ago, would review its success once it was completed and discuss the possibility of weekly food waste collections.

Although recycling rates have improved since the scheme started, changes to Government targets and an increase in landfill tax have put extra pressure on calls for the working party to reform and address these issues.

Conservative Coun Geraghty accused Mr Foster of "mischief making" and blamed opposition members for the delay, saying they had not decided on the terms of reference of the group or picked a chairman.

"I will need to approve the terms of reference but I have not been given any to approve," he said. "It's up to the opposition members to get their act together."

However, Labour leader councillor Adrian Gregson said it is the responsibility of the council's policy development and value for money committee, which oversees the working party, to set wheels in motion - headed by Conservative councillor Andy Roberts.

Coun Roberts said a meeting had been set-up with head of cleaner and greener Mike Harrison on Wednesday, March 19, to decide what the agenda should include and find someone to lead the review. He said the process was taking time because he wanted it to be "thorough".