OF all the council services, waste and recycling is the one subject on which everyone in the district has an opinion.

As a councillor I welcome residents views and I have to say that the bulky collection service is always praised as a most useful and efficient service.

I was therefore very surprised and upset when SDC recently announced, on the Friday before bank Holiday (shades of Yes, Minister), that they would start to charge for this service from September 14.

Of course we did know this was coming as part of the new refuse and recycling system next June but this part has been rushed in early, with only two weeks notice, and no publicity at all, why?

Residents who use this service are responsible members of society and this is not the way they should be treated.

As a council we agreed a budget of £50,000 for publicity to inform the public of the various changes and the County Council contributed a similar amount, so there is absolutely no excuse for not advertising this change widely and informing the public of other opportunities for free disposal of furniture in the district.

Neither is there any justification for only giving two weeks' notice.

Just pushing out a press release is not good enough.

This change should be widely advertised and implementation delayed for at least three months.

Nigel Cooper

SDC councillor (Con, Painswick)