AN "overwhelming" majority of Wyre Forest residents have backed plans to collect wheelie bins every fortnight as part of a new recycling venture.

Three-quarters of people who took part in the district-wide consultation said they would prefer to switch to a cheaper, less frequent bin-emptying service rather than pay more Council Tax to keep weekly collections.

The response is a "ringing endorsement" of the council's budget plans, said leader Liz Davies, of Health Concern.

Councillors will now press on with plans to introduce a weekly kerbside recycling scheme, allied to the fortnightly wheelie-bin collections.

"At the outset I said the people of Wyre Forest were very sophisticated and understood how to make their voices heard," said Mrs Davies. "A huge number of them took the chance to have their say on these issues."

Residents were asked to opt for a fortnightly collection of the existing 240-litre bins, costing an extra £3.43 in council tax for an average Band D property - while a weekly collection of new 120-litre bins would cost an extra £16.87.

A record-breaking 27 per cent - or 11,179 - households took part in the consultation.

Residents were also asked to give a "priority" rating to 10 initiatives the council plans to spend money on.

Top priority was providing better play areas, closely followed by tree planting and research into more car parking for Kidderminster.

Bewdley Museum and Stourport Community Centre, both under threat, won support from residents. Some 60.9 per cent voted to retain the museum, while 67.7 per cent voted to keep the centre.

The results and other budget issues will be debated at Wednesday's full meeting of the council, when the council tax levels for the year ahead will be set.

Conservative district councillor Stephen Clee said: "The environmental health problems that will grow from this decision will be enormous. People will put waste out and leave it on the streets for longer periods and society will suffer.

"It is immoral and wrong to downgrade people's weekly collection for a second rate service - Health Concern should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves."

Labour group leader Jamie Shaw accepted there had been a "surprisingly good" response to the survey - but added the results on bin collections had been affected by a "skewed" question.

The budget could have been formulated differently and reserves used to bring down the cost of operating the weekly collection, he said.