A Load Of Rubbish Tax In Birmingham

NOT content with bombarding us with high council tax bills and ridiculous parking fines, local councils have now found another way to squeeze every last hard-earned penny out of us.

According to a report in the Times, fixed penalties of over £185,000 have been issued to people who have put their rubbish out too early for the binmen.

While another heinous crime of leaving your wheelie bin on the street, surely up there with child trafficking and arson, has also led to hefty fines.

Birmingham tops the list for these rubbish fines, with the city’s council issuing 592 penalty notices in the past 12 months.

Christine Melsom, founder of IsItFair said “Councils must be a little bit more forgiving. This is too stringent. A lot of people find it difficult to stick to a deadline if they are rushing out to work or they do not have a bin provided by the council”.

However, local Tory councillor Robert Alden is having none of it. Says he: “The bags attract rats and they can start to smell if they have food in them. These are the kind of measures we have to take to deal with these problems”.

So how should we deal with odious councillors then?

Anorak

Posted: 13th, April 2007 | In: Money Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink