I AM astounded that Durham County has decided to spend £4.5m to introduce a fortnightly bin collection.

This will inevitably lead to redundancies and an unsightly build-up of rubbish which is well documented by councils that have switched to this method.

Our Labour-controlled council is, once again, streamrolling the residents with its political dogma.

The Government is encouraging all councils to continue with weekly bin collections and have provided extra funds to any council who wishes to pursue this.

But Durham will not be collecting any of this money.

Instead, it is quite happy to spend £4.5m, make a number of workers redundant and, apart from the number of years it will take to recoup the initial cost and the misery inflicted on the workforce, in a short space of time, it may be the only council operating fortnightly collections.

The only way to change this is surely to vote for alternative councillors and stop this Labourled nonsense.

When I read of some of the decisions imposed on us by this Labour run council, a famous phrase from World War One springs to mind – “Lions led by donkeys”.

David Coglan, Newton Aycliffe.