Town Hall bullies - by appointment

The Sunday Times, followed by yesterday's Daily Telegraph, told us that rubbish collection has acquired a more sinister turn.

Central Government has told local councils to impose fixed penalties of between £75 and £110 for misdemeanours with rubbish bins. There have been penalties before, but the Government has decreed the range within which penalties must fall.These "crimes" include failure to close the lids of wheelie bins (- this when collections are now fortnightly and rubbish accumulates), putting out extra black plastic bags, putting out the bin on the wrong evening or putting it in the wrong place.

The Government is recommending a penalty of £100, payable on the spot to a council inspector. If so this fine will be higher than that typically levied by police on shoplifters and people deemed drunk and disorderly. It is also higher than fines handed out to people guilty of fly-tipping. Failure to pay on the spot will lead to a higher charge. A Cardiff bus driver who was "fined" £100 because his wheelie bin was open 4 inches refused to pay and was taken to court. There he was ordered to pay £210, or about a week's wages. In the first instance when ordered to pay £100 for his crime, he was confronted by Council inspectors wearing stab-proof vests and carrying photographic evidence of his crime.

From April 2006 until April 2007 44,000 households were fined. In due course we shall find out if in the next year even more hard-pressed households have been fined.

Is it (yet another) stealth tax? The Government claims that it is not, and have included mixed explanations - claiming that the charges which were requested by local councils had been agreed in1990, are designed to avoid the necessity and expense of court action and are designed to cover expensive new conditions to arise on re-cycling measures over the next 5 years!

Is the crime worse than than others, specifically shoplifting, drunken disorder or fly tipping? Surely not!

We used to have a system where only the courts can fine, because there is possible legal redress. We now the police and local authorities able to levy fines, the same local authorities which have discontinued a weekly collection and already charge large rate elements for rubbish collection.

Worse still, all this is happening when council officials are required to act as "storm trooper" tax collectors. Is there any real surprise that politicians are held in such low esteem, and that more and more people feel that voting is a waste of effort?