Nov 1, 2007
Bin Charging “LIGHT YEARS AWAY” in Reading East
Gordon Brown’s green policies were thrown into confusion yesterday after ministers confirmed that they would be pushing ahead with pilot schemes for controversial new “pay-as-you-throw” bin taxes.
Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, announced that powers to set up pilot schemes for charging households who put out more waste would be included in the Climate Change Bill.
Commenting on the Government’s proposal to allow for the pilot schemes, Cllr Gareth Epps, Liberal Democrat PPC for Reading East, said:
“It makes a welcome change for Whitehall to allow councils to experiment. Given the ridiculous degree of central control, it is typical that it should take such a controversial issue to let go.
Of course in Reading we are light years away from such a scheme. Under Labour in Reading and the Tories in Wokingham our Councils are too far behind on recycling or waste minimisation.
Our priority must be to sort out the waste PFI which risks leaving us behind on recycling for the next 25 years.”
