The Horsell's Mouth Politics, pedantry and personal interests

I haven't got a picture of a Woking bin, this one's from Peterborough

I saw Denzil Coulson after the executive in Brewery Road Car Park while I was chatting with the News and Mail’s excellent reporter Beth Woodger. He stopped to make some chat and it was good to exchange words after a few little storms in teacups over blog posts etc. He’s standing as the Lib Dem candidate in North East Hampshire, where he’ll be canvassing the leafy streets of Fleet trying to nab James Arbuthnot’s 12,500 majority away.

You’d have to be pretty optimistic to believe he’ll do it but it takes guts to slog away at the other side’s safe seats and it’s fighters like Denzil who keep politics interesting. While I wouldn’t like to think we’ll lose a seat like North East Hants, I’m sure Denzil will give a good account of himself and I’m pleased he’s standing for Goldsworth West again – we might not agree on much but he’s strong member and the council needs that on all sides.

Following our discussion, he walked off and looking at his website for the first time since the Queen’s Speech, I now realise why. He’s gone and posted a cheeky little piece about the rise in cost of the green bins for April 2010, claiming that it is about raising money rather than keeping the environment clean. Well, it’s only going up £2  for most people from £35 to £37, which isn’t exactly extortionate and from £15 to £20 for a second bin.

Denzil’s point is that concessionary charges are going up from £20 to £25 for the first bin and £10 to £15 for the second, which works out at a higher percentage than non-concessions. But obviously if you calculate it in percentage terms, you will get a higher percentage the lower the starting base – that’s just the way numbers work.

I don’t think it’s a big secret that the point of the new scheme is both environmental ie it will help more carbon-efficient collection and prevent 400,000 plastic bags going to landfill and budgetary ie it embraces the principle that residents who use the service should contribute to it rather than the cost being spread to everyone through council tax.

One of the beauties of the new waste scheme is that it introduces a small slice of free market economics into the service. It’s basic pricing theory – if the council charges too much for bins, people simply won’t take up the service and the council will be forced to reduce the price. If however take-up is huge and the council doesn’t test price elasticity at a higher level, it has done taxpayers – including those on lower incomes - a disservice by not attaining Best Value.

So if concessionary households are struggling to find the extra £5 a year, that is something that the market will tell us and I am sure will be examined further.