Newbury man rubbishes council over bins

David Moffat took his one-man crusade to the council after seeing bins being chopped up and dumped in a skip

A NEWBURY man was so infuriated at seeing West Berkshire Council wheelie bins, that were in perfectly good condition, being chopped up and dumped in a skip that he trawled one through town during his one-man crusade to rescue them.

Eagle-eyed David Moffat, aged 75, of Andover Road, spotted the bins being cut up and thrown into a skip outside Avonbank House in Newbury on Tuesday morning at around 11am, as he was making his way to the tax office.

To his horror, he noticed that out of a dozen or so wheelie bins being destroyed, several of them had nothing wrong with them.

As a former West Berkshire district councillor himself, and recent Conservative candidate for the Victoria ward, he recalled that the bins had cost the council around £24.50 each.

So, he marched a wheelie bin through the town to the Market Street council offices to make a complaint.

On his way, he stopped at a Leisure Promotions shop in the Kennet Shopping centre to contact Newburytoday.co.uk and said the bins had been left to rot outside Avonbank House after council staff had moved out of the building in December 2009.

“I am wheeling one bin back to the council now and there's nothing wrong with it," he said.

"I'm trying to save as many as I can, even if I have to wheel them one by one."

He added that action should have been taken sooner to recycle the bins as some had been vandalised and set on fire.

At the Market Street offices, Mr Moffat said a council officer told him that someone should have already cleared them up rather than leaving them, however, Mr Moffat said: "I told him it's not good enough.

"It's our property; these things cost hundreds of pounds of taxpayers' money.

"Don't we feel even slightly ashamed of wasting people's money?"

He added: "I'm sick and tired of seeing money wasted.

"The one I took to the council offices was better than the one I have got at home.

"We pay enough for these things to start with, the least we can do is look after them.

After Newburytoday.co.uk contacted West Berkshire's executive councillor responsible for waste, Hilary Cole (Con, Chieveley) yesterday (Wednesday), she said she had no idea about the wheelie bins that were being cut up.

A spokeswoman for the council, Peta Stoddart-Crompton, said: "Avonbank House is a privately owned commercial building.

"We are going to look into how the bins came to be put in the skip."