WHEELIE bins started arriving in parts of Worcester this week and a third of households will have received them by the end of the month.

But their arrival ang-ered some people who thought they would not be introduced until after six city councillors had completed a six-week trial. One man who wants to opt out of the scheme has accused the city council of being arrogant and autocratic in its attitude.

Brian Cornes, of Barley Crescent, Warndon Vill-ages said he had nowhere to keep the bins.

"I have no rear entrance to my property and have converted my garage into a dining room. The only place I could put them is in front of the bay window or in the shared driveway," he said.

"At present I keep my rubbish at the back of the shed, but if I kept a wheelie bin there it would mean taking it through the house.

"Yet the council says that if I don't have one I will have to make my own arrangements to dispose of rubbish."

The city's head of environmental services, Mike Harrison, said no one could expect their rubbish collection to remain unchanged.

"The decision to introduce wheelie bins was made by the council last December. There is no going back now," he said.

"With the coloured bag system, we have incr-eased our recycling from eight per cent to 17 per cent, but we have to get it up to 24 per cent.

"We are driving recycling forward and we are saving council taxpayers' money - about £300,000 a year."

Out of 13,000 households, only about 300 would be exempt from having wheelie bins, such as those living in certain city centre flats with no garden and no rear entrance, said Mr Harrison.

In deciding who could be exempt, care had to be taken not to set precedents that could lead to other people demanding exemption. The point of the trial by council members was to find out how the system worked in practice.

Councillors David Clark and Margaret Layland, who are among those taking part in the trial, both said they were happy with their wheelie bins. "They are easier, because all the recyclables go into one bin, and cleaner, because you don't have bags getting ripped apart.

"I don't see any problem, other than disposing of the old dustbin," said Coun Clark.

Coun Layland, who is only 4ft 10in tall, said she was amazed at how easy it was to manoeuvre the large green bins.

"One of my neighbours was worried about getting them up and down seven steps, so I took mine round and tried it out. It was a third full of bottles and there was no problem," she said.