LIKE many York residents, I had a busy Saturday, in my case preparing to decorate the hall and staircase.

Once finished for the day I cleared out the car boot and loaded it up with old carpets, bags of soggy stripped wallpaper and the like and headed for Foss Islands.

To my surprise, the many cars arriving at the site were questioned by a young man and sent away. "All the skips are full," he said. "You'll have to go to Strensall.".

Cursing, I drove to the household waste site at Towthorpe, only to find it locked. "All skips full" said the sign, below a rather larger one promised a £2,000 fine for anyone dumping at the gate.

Because the site at Beckfield Lane doesn't even open on weekend afternoons, there was nowhere else to try and I drove my rubbish back home. Still cursing.

If only two per cent of the cars arriving at the sites at Foss Islands and Towthorpe decided to take the easy, but antisocial, step of flytipping, the cost to the council taxpayers of clearing up the resulting mess will greatly exceed the cost of ensuring an adequate number of skips are available for what is inevitably going to be a busy weekend.

What happened to the council's much vaunted York Pride initiative?

In the year before the Lib Dems took over, York was runner-up in the national Tidy Britain contest. After spending tens of thousands on York Pride, I detect scant evidence of any improvement of standards of cleanliness.

No wonder, if this is how the waste sites are managed. Some council common sense may help!

Martin Brumby,

East Parade,

York.

Updated: 10:12 Wednesday, June 15, 2005