CALLS are being made for Worcester City Council to re-think scrapping its public skips.

An in-house panel of politicians last night asked the Labour leadership to devise a new strategy to avoid flytipping in Worcester.

As your Worcester News revealed last month, the cash-strapped council wants to save £15,000 by removing eight skips which appear at various locations across the city every Saturday.

Now a committee of councillors have intervened by calling for a fresh investigation into the implications.

The performance, management and budget scrutiny committee wants the cabinet to consider promoting alternative ways of dumping rubbish, or slowing the process down, rather than cutting the service in one fell swoop.

All the rubbish which people chuck in the skips gets send to landfill.

Councillor Jo Hodges said: "This will cause some communities difficulties.

"To do this so soon, and remove them completely will have an adverse affect, there has to be a period of 'easing in' before we do this.

"I'd like to propose that while we do more to increase recycling and do recognise skips are counter to this, we are concerned about removing them without the promotion and advertising of alternatives."

Fellow members of the committee agreed, saying they would be prepared to back her stance.

Councillor Simon Geraghty, Tory group leader, said: "I certainly have concerns around the loss of Saturday skips.

"In one fell swoop, it's a lot to get rid of so soon.

"It will affect a lot of communities and I don't believe the council has demonstrated how it can make that shift without increasing flytipping - there is always a risk it will cause unintended consequences."

For over 20 years the skips have appeared in locations including Shap Drive in Warndon, Liverpool Road in Ronkswood and Waverley Street in Diglis.

The council says no other local authority in the entire country now provides them, and that there are many alternatives now, like the tip in Bilford Road or in some cases, recycling.

Because the skips' content goes to landfill it also incurs heavy Government taxes, which falls on the county council.

The feedback will be considered by the city's Labour cabinet as part of setting the 2014/15 budget, which will be voted on come Tuesday, February 25.