IN common with all my Forest of Dean councillor colleagues I received the following letter from a lady in Tutshill which I copy without amendment:

'Dear Councillors, I am surprised that there is no provision for reduction for disabled people in your new charge for green bins.

'Disabled people benefit as much as anyone from the enjoyment of gardening but to do so they have to employ the services of carers and friends to place green waste in the bins whilst they garden and put the bins out at the allotted time and place. (The on property collection service that you make available is often inappropriate for homes where disabled people have had to have security adaptations. Carers have to put the bins out and be available to tidy up waste.)

'Disabled people using green bins have always had to organise, work harder and pay to utilise the bins in excess of the able bodied. Now they have to also pay the council £26 per year.

'The reluctance of the Waste Services Support Team in verifying whether this issue was even raised when the decision was made to start charging has meant I have been unable to pass my comment to anyone remotely bothered. All they can suggest is that since the councillors are elected by the public the public should inform the councillors. Therefore I am informing you all.

'Since the council takes note of the increased costs and reduced access to disabled people when using council services, for example leisure services, I would ask that the same criteria be applied in the case of green bin charges.'

I would like to say to the lady concerned, and your readers, that even before I was elected to the district council I was a member of a group, set up by the council, which was "consulted" on the effect that proposed council policies would have on different sections of the community including the disabled. Then and now I was and am extremely "bothered".

Martin Quaile who is the cabinet member responsible for waste disposal was present at a meeting of that group which received a presentation on the proposed new regime including the green bin charge.

I spoke up very strongly on that issue at the time and said that I believed it was discriminatory as it disadvantaged older and disabled people. Martin Quail's response was that they had the choice of whether to pay or not and it was unfair for people who didn't use green bins to subsidise those who did.

I said that older and disabled people generally didn't produce as much household waste as younger people with families and it could be argued that the subsidy was operating the other way round. This argument was dismissed and Cllr Quaile intimated that the decision had already been made.

As a district councillor, elected in May 2011, I again raised the issue at the last full council meeting this month when the council budget was discussed and received the same dismissive remarks from Cllr Martin Quaile.

I have discussed this issue with my Labour colleagues on the Forest of Dean District Council and they are unanimous in supporting me on this issue. I believe this charge is not only a cynical move to make people pay for something which was already paid for in the council tax but is against the spirit of the Disability Discrimination Act. It removes a service which was part of the council tax, along with the other services such as car parking and rodent control and places an unfair charge on those who can least afford it.

I know very well that they are wedded to the cynical mantra of a "freeze" on Council Tax but call on the Conservative group in general and Martin Quaile in particular to examine their consciences and find a way of removing this callous, unfair and discriminatory tax on elderly and disabled people.

– Frank Baynham (Labour), Coleford East.