DEAR EDITOR - I have lived and worked in Bromsgrove for 33 years and have seen a steady decline in essential services like rubbish collection, keeping the streets clean and pavements free of holes and weeds.

The council tax has risen steeply, well above the rate of inflation during this decline in services. I am now one of those second class citizens who is given a black bag by the council on the seven Bank Holidays of the year in which to store rubbish for the seven two-week periods when the council has abandoned a weekly service.

During hot weather the smells from heaving plastic bags increase and many are torn open by foraging animals with the usual health risks.

Neighbouring authorities, like Birmingham, Redditch, and Wychavon, provide a 52-week collection for all their residents.

Wychavon for example, pays its rubbish collectors to make extra collections on Saturdays when there are no collections on Bank Holidays.

For some years Bromsgrove District Council produced a revolving and complicated timetable of rubbish collections which at least had the merit of giving all residents the same number of collections.

Unfortunately few people could remember the day of the week when their rubbish was timetabled to be collected. Many people put out their rubbish on the wrong day with the result that black bags of rubbish often blocked pavements for 24 hours or more.

Why is it beyond the wit of our district council and their highly paid top officials to devise a regular and fair rubbish collection for all its residents?

Bromsgrove District Council is proposing to change the way decisions are made in its meetings by installing a so-called cabinet with a leader. It has just spent £11,000 of taxpayers' money to send out 36,121 forms asking Bromsgrove residents what they think of this change.

Only 4,304 of these questionnaires were returned, the other 32,000 were thrown into the rubbish. I would suggest that this overwhelming lack of response was because most residents do not believe that calling a few councillors a cabinet will make the slightest difference to the way things are run in Bromsgrove.

The council might just as well have stuffed the £11,000 of taxpayers' money straight into their black rubbish bags.

From the mess the district council has made of organising a basic service like rubbish collection, it could not organise a proverbial party in a brewery.

If this council cannot organise a regular weekly collection for all its residents, it should refund part of the council tax to residents who get only a second class service.

Second class citizens of Bromsgrove unite! You have nothing to lose but your Bank Holiday black bags!

Dr Alan Richards,

Ragley Crescent,

Bromsgrove.