THE "total farce" which saw the controversial scrapping of weekly household waste pick-ups cost York taxpayers £23,000, a leading councillor has claimed.

Coun Ruth Potter, Labour group environment spokeswoman, told a meeting of City of York Council that people had been forced to foot the bill for Liberal Democrat "incompetence". She said thousands had been "wasted" on publicity surrounding the launch, the suspension and relaunch of the scheme and the issuing of new stickers "after the wrong information was placed on bins regarding collection times".

She said the relaunch after a winter hiatus, which began today, meant £8,808 was spent on new leaflets, with extra people manning phone lines to deal with expected complaints costing another £9,000.

"Residents may as well put their money straight in the bin rather than paying it to you in council tax," she told the Liberal Democrat group.

But today Coun Andrew Waller, the council's environment chief, said the project had come in "under budget".

The Evening Press Bin It! campaign is opposing the scrapping of household weekly waste collections, but supports recycling initiatives. More than 7,000 people have backed our campaign.

Coun Potter said: "This was a complete farce on the part of the part of the Lib Dems. Yet again they rushed through one of their poorly thought-out policies without properly consulting or informing the public, and it has cost tens of thousands of tax payers' money.

"On top of this, they sent out the wrong information and had to pay council officers, at a cost of £19 per hour, to go round sticking new labels on all the bins and now they are soon going to have them answering the phones! It is this sort of waste that we have seen across all departments since the Lib Dems took control.

"We are seeing the results of it in their budget proposals for next year and it is the people of York who are having to pay the price."

Coun Waller said: "This is making a mountain out of a molehill. We have kept the costs of the changes below budget and have saved nearly £100,000 last year.

"We have used staff and informed residents. If she doesn't like that then there's no pleasing her. Without the scheme, we would be looking for an extra £1 million."

Weekly collections end WEEKLY collections of household rubbish were once again scrapped today as City of York Counicl resumed its fortnightly collections of garden waste.

Sixty thousand homes across the city have had their new collection timetables, but anyone unsure about which bin to put out should phone the York Pride Action Line on 01904 551551 or visit the council website at www.york.gov/waste to check their collection dates.

Andy Hudson, assistant director of environment and neighbourhoods, explained: "The first two months of the garden waste collection scheme, last October and November, were extremely successful, with up to 73 per cent of households taking part."