Enough of the snow excuses

SIR – The following is a complaint submitted to Welwyn Hatfield Council about its painfully predictable failure to collect refuse following just a couple of inches of snow.

‘Defeated by a couple of inches of snow...AGAIN’!

It seems incredible to me that despite it snowing most years in living memory, that in 2009, with all the taxpayers’ money supposedly spent on state-of-the-art equipment, that the first fall of just a few inches of snow causes everything to grind to a halt!

I live in Woodhall Lane, WGC, which has been driveable throughout the cold snap and I, as most others, have carefully continued about our business in normal vehicles while Serco workers with everything at their disposal failed to collect our refuse! Why?!

And that’s a rhetorical question really, as no excuse can possibly explain why in this day and age with all the Met Office forecasting and available machinery is it anything short of pathetic that we should be being fleeced the way we are while still having to listen to lame excuses about undriveable routes.

The trucks weigh so much they’re unlikely to get stuck anyway and if there is such a risk do what the rest of Europe do – get or rent a couple of specialist vehicles or buy some snow-chains.

With council tax increasing 150 per cent in the last 11 years surely that’s not too much to ask . . . again a rhetorical question.

Steven Peers,

Woodhall Lane,

WGC.