I WRITE in response to the various letters and articles regarding wheelie bins in the last two week's editions of the Shuttle/Times & News.

As Cabinet Member for Commercial Services, it is my responsibility to oversee the refuse and recycling collection within the district.

As you may be aware, every council in the country is set strict recycling and waste minimisation targets by the Government, who, in turn have them imposed on them by EU regulations.

These require Wyre Forest District Council to obtain a recycling target of 28.3 per cent of all waste collected from domestic collections by March 31, 2007.

The district council is proceeding well against this target and, with the current weekly collection of recycling and fortnightly of domestic waste, we have moved a long way from our performance which was a little below six per cent prior to the introduction of this service and we are currently achieving 26.5 per cent of household waste recycled.

If the council fails to reach these targets, the Government has the power to impose fines and to remove previously paid grant aid, both of which would have a significant impact on council tax levels in the district.

Any requirement to repay grants, which currently total £1.8 million, would mean that other council services would have to have substantial cuts in order to fund the repayments, which I am sure everyone would agree would have an unacceptable and detrimental effect on local services which is something that I and my Conservative administration would wish to avoid.

A key part of the strategy is the fortnightly wheeled bin collection and, although I agree that in very hot weather additional care should be taken in the way that households dispose of and wrap their waste, prior to being placed in the wheelie bin, the overall strategy of fortnightly collections is one that cannot be abandoned if we are to meet the strictly imposed targets.

The cost of the current refuse service is £17.51 per household, per annum. If we were to introduce a weekly collection this would increase the collection costs by just over £700,000 per annum, taking the total cost of the service to £1.5 million which would equate to £35.02 per household per annum.

Wyre Forest District Council's recycling achievements are seen as good practice in the county and other councils such as Worcester City and Wychavon are in the process of trailing similar fortnightly collections.

It is recognised by many local authorities that in order to meet the strict waste minimisation targets, fortnightly collections are an effective method and Wyre Forest is one of some 120 local authorities throughout England and Wales who currently operate fortnightly collections.

Readers may be interested to know that as a council we have agreed with all other local councils in Worcestershire to introduce a twin wheeled bin collection service from 2009, which will hopefully give substantial improvements to the levels of recycling, as well as giving a more flexible and controlled refuse service and alleviate householders from having to sort their recyclables into different boxes.

In the meantime, with the council's current investment and fleet and strict recycling targets it is not possible to change the current policy of fortnightly wheeled bin collections.

Simply, to reverse the collection regime, with wheeled bins collected weekly and recycling fortnightly, would pose significant health and safety problems with the lifting and sorting of boxes at the kerbside.

Furthermore, it would mean enormous costs operationally to the council, as explained above, together with the repayment of large Defra grants and we would not meet the Government's recycling targets.

As Cabinet member and as an elected member of Wyre Forest District Council, I do appreciate and acknowledge everyone's different views, comments and concerns on the subject and I would not wish anyone to feel that their voice had simply been ignored. I can assure you it has not.

It is very easy, without the full facts to call for a weekly wheelie bin collection and fortnightly recycling but I hope now that residents have had the full facts explained that they understand the position that we are in.

This Conservative administration is committed to delivering the best possible public services across the board to the taxpayer and to low council tax increases.

Therefore, to reverse this decision would be financially irresponsible to the people of the Wyre Forest particularly when the system is to change in 2009.

We inherited this system from the previous Health Concern administration and for all of the above reasons in my letter we are where we are, therefore, there is no alternative but to stick with the existing system until the new scheme is introduced in 2009.

MARCUS HART

Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Commercial Services,

Wyre Forest District Council