Madam, 

If anyone has used the Bromsgrove waste disposal site at Quantry Lane they would have experienced the restrictions that councillor McDonald has described.

I have been helping my neighbour remove rubbish to the tip and was amazed at the draconian restrictions being imposed.

It seems plausible to listen to the council's reasons for imposing these measures but why should us residents have to put up with it?

If you can only go in the week with no restrictions that is a restriction in itself!

People now have different work patterns, even before the Covid crisis, so if you only have time on a weekend and need to make several trips then you’ve had it! Tied down to two trips to the tip for residents who pay for this via their rates, I don’t think so.

The booking system is not what it is cracked up to be either. We cancelled one visit and moved it to a later time but when we got to the tip it wasn’t recorded and because we didn’t have our mobile to prove it, the staff had to ask the manager to allow us in! To rub it in even further there was no one using the tip, it was empty!

This is the downside of making restrictive rules, they, more often than not add to peoples’ problems, and do not solve them.

It doesn’t allow for any flexibility. I was particularly annoyed knowing we needed to ask permission for something we pay for. I learn that the management of the tip is outsourced to a contractor. So we are at the behest of a private company and not directly employed council workers. There is a case for private enterprise and this is not one of them.

Whatever the council say they do not have the control of contractors as they would do council workers. Witness the way roads are repaired!

Bromsgrove DC, take these restrictions off as soon as possible and let’s get back to some normality. Don’t put the power of decision-making in the hands of non-elected officials.

Alan Cooper