North Herts Council has tried to justify its disgraceful decision to ignore the 85% opposition to its brown bin tax by saying it needs the money.

I am not allowed to reveal the financial details of the deal but if you look at the published information you will see that last year North Herts Council spent £6.3 million on refuse collection and street cleaning. The equivalent figure for East Herts was just £4.5 million. East Herts has 10% more people than North Herts spread over a larger area and yet North Herts spends 40% (yes 40%) more providing the same service.

Both councils have had their current waste contracts for 7 years so that means that the people who say they must charge to empty our brown bins have wasted more than £12 million of our money over that time.