I WRITE in response to the recent letter by Cllr John Walsh, and his Conservative Party pledge to reverse recycling in Bolton.

At the Council budget meeting in February, when the local Conservatives put forward their plans to follow the example of Northamptonshire Council, by bankrupting the Council, they were well and truly caught on the hop as they seemingly forgot to mention that they had not costed a major commitment.

They had announced on some selective leaflets that they would reinstate a weekly residual bin collection. The comical display from Cllr Walsh as he was forced into the corner of ‘fight or flight’ would have been laughable were it not so for the already stretched finances of the Council.

As they had failed to do their homework, I did the figures for them. The cost of doing what they had half-heartedly pledged would be just under £5 million. This figure is broken down into: an additional £960,000 for additional waste collections, and an additional £3,850,000 for additional waste disposal costs.

Cllr Walsh doesn’t agree with the figures, and why would he when it is much easier to try to hoodwink the electorate into thinking there would be no consequences of this backward move. The figures are derived from the fact that a reversal of policy would see a huge reduction recycled materials and an huge increase in all types of waste being placed into the grey bin, rather than separated. These figures are derived not only from Bolton’s example, but from the experiences of Councils up and down the country who have made these types of changes.

When Bolton moved to a slim bin collection, our recycling rate rose by eight per cent, saving the Council millions of pounds in wasted waste disposal costs. By reverting to a weekly residual collection, the effect would be similar to increasing the bin size, as it would increase the overall capacity or opportunity not to recycle. That eight per cent rise that we all achieved would quickly drop away.

Making the changes to our bins collection was never an easy decision for us, along with almost every other council in Britain of all political control, but we had enough confidence in the people of Bolton and their ability to embrace the change.

In contrast, the Tories and UKIP groups strongly argued that Bolton people were not capable of embracing this change. They said that Bolton people were somehow different from the rest of the country and wouldn’t understand it. They patronised Bolton people, and Bolton people have proved them wrong.

Cultural change is hard won, but we are winning this fight slowly but surely. We simply ask people to make that cultural change by separating their rubbish into the relevant bins.

It is extremely saddening but not surprising to see a Tory Group in Bolton that seems more interested in attempting to blag the people of Bolton than it is with dealing with the harsh realities of Government cuts. If heaven forbid, they did take control of this council, they would land this council with an additional and totally unnecessary £5m of expenditure in order to try to win a handful of votes.

This would mean either five per cent on council tax or an additional £5m of cuts to children and adults services. That would be the choice that a Tory council would have to make to fund this backward step.

I know that not all Conservative council support John Walsh’s pledge and so would hope that in time, more sensible voices are heard on this important issue, rather than the voice of back-of-a-fag-packet, ‘make it up as you go along’ politics we are seeing from their current leadership.

Cllr Nick Peel

Councillor for Tonge with the Haulgh

Executive Member for Environmental Services