CLLR Adrian Fox referred again to the invitation he extended to some of us to join the party visiting Daventry to see how they deal with their refuse disposal problem (Wiltshire Times, October 27).

I do not wish to do so because I feel that I would lose my moral right to criticise councillors and council officials who travel all over the country on expenses funded from our council tax if I did.

Overall council tax in West Wiltshire has increased by over seven per cent in each of the past two years and if no improvement is forthcoming next April, I would like to be free to comment without having compromised my independence.

Forward planning is laudable, but the present refuse collection system in Trowbridge seems to be teetering on the brink of collapse. The dustbins in our area have not been emptied on time for several weeks and this week the scheduled Wednesday collection did not take place until Friday.

Cllr Fox still seems to have lost sight of my original question, which was whether it was the intention to suspend refuse collection in Trowbridge for three weeks over the Christmas and New Year holiday period as happened last year. He may recall that there was some confusion when councillors were claiming that plastic sacks had been issued to all households, whereas council employees had no sacks to issue.

D ROBERTS,

Biss Meadow,

Trowbridge.

l REGARDING the recent arguments about recycling our rubbish. How about tackling the problem from the other end namely the packaging. Could the manufacturers be persuaded to use less?

Items appear to be packaged so many times. We could all say no to that last plastic bag. Have you ever tried to extract a shirt from its wrappings?

PEGGY PARSONS,

Hazel Grove,

Trowbridge.