MANY of the thousands of Worcester householders who visit the Bilford Road household waste site every week will have noticed a sign proudly proclaiming the amount of rubbish reclaimed or recycled that week.

These days, the figure is pushing 50 per cent, which shows the efforts the green-minded people of Worcester are making to sort their rubbish and put it into the appropriate skip.

But soon that figure will be zero and the people of Worcester will have to make much more of an effort to recycle their rubbish - because for six months from June 23 the site will be closed for refurbishment, and householders will have to battle their way across the city to the next nearest alternative site in Horsford Road, St John's.

With the best will in the world, how many people will make that trip?

Anyone who has visited the Bilford Road site will accept that it needs improving. There's not enough room for cars and it's shabby, even for what used to be called a tip.

But to close a whole facility down for half a year seems madness at a time when councils are pushing the green agenda more than ever.

And to do it during the summer, when half the population succumbs to DIY mania, seems doubly daft.

MP Michael Foster points out that the location of the site, in a residential street, is not ideal.

Did the county council consider building a new site in a more appropriate place and keeping Bilford Road open until it was complete?

Perhaps that would have been a bit too sensible.