Driffield Councillors become "Mr Shifters"

A recent plea for help from an elderly resident of Washington Street has served to highlight what can be a difficult situation for residents needing to dispose of bulky household items.

In this particular case East Riding Councillors Jonathan Owen , Symon Fraser and Felicity Temple turned into Mr Shifters to take a fridge to the Kelleythorpe household waste disposal site.

Cllr. Temple commented: The ERYC policy is designed to provide householders with a cost effective way of getting rid of genuine household waste whilst protecting them from having to pick up the bill for the tipping of commercial waste.

She added: It works this way, most householders using private cars or garden size trailers will have no difficulty in using any of our household waste disposal sites. If they are using a commercial vehicle or large trailer then they are able to apply for permits to tip private waste using these means. The permits are free and posted out very promptly to any one who asks for them phone, contact Maureen Gibbs on 01482 395580.

Cllr Owen said: Residents who have no way of transporting items to the tip will be faced with a small fee (15) to have council waste operatives collect the item. It is wrong to think that there is any free disposal of either domestic or commercial rubbish, it all costs money and the council tax payer picks up the bill, whether the waste is incinerated, landfilled or composted there is a cost and we taxpayers face the escalating costs.

Cllr Symon Fraser recalled: Another East Riding resident recently gave me a good haranguing about what he saw as a difference between the ERYC policy and the North Yorkshires supposed free system and the growing problem of fly tipping. I replied to him along the following lines.

That by taking his waste to the North Yorkshire tip at Seamer he had landed on a disposal method which was free to him, but that his North Riding neighbors may not be so enthusiastic about the prospect of subsidising his waste disposal through their council tax payments.

Yes, fly tipping is a growing problem, it will get worse. European laws on the disposal of fridges and freezers are creating a time bomb in terms of safe waste disposal and future EU directives on things like the taxation of cars to pay for their eventual disposal and recycling are going to do nothing except add to existing problems.

E.R.Y.C. policy is designed to enable private individuals to get rid of waste at least cost, whilst justly charging commercial disposers for waste they need to get rid of as part of a business operation. It is a policy which tries to safeguard the council taxpayer from paying for other peoples waste disposal.

The resident had highlighted what happens if you make no attempt to differentiate between genuine East Riding Residents household waste and that which is not, ie the North Riding situation, where they were paying for his waste disposal. East Riding residents would soon end up doing the same for residents and visitors from other authorities.

Waste is a huge and growing problem that presents taxpayers with a gigantic and burgeoning cost the only real answer is for society to reassess how it purchases and how it wastes.

Fly tipping has been a problem and will always remain a problem, there will always be people who will fly tip even when there are facilities provided at no cost over and above their council tax. Some of these people may be commercial operators who are deliberately trying to evade perfectly legitimate charges for refuse disposal in order to profit at the expense of the domestic council tax payer.

I would argue that the East Riding does have a responsible policy on waste disposal which offers our East Riding residents disposal of private refuse within the charges of their council tax but which legitimately levies for commercial waste."

9th October 2002