Your letters

Make wheelie bins history

I write in support of the letter from Mr Holdsworth that, “Wheelie bins are all that’s wrong with the borough.” and “Councillors need to stand up to Libdems and council officers to retain all that is special about Wokingham.”

I disagree that not having wheelie bins is all that is special about Wokingham, but our very special lack of wheelie bins has a long history.

Wokingham has proudly not had wheelie bins since at least the Middle Ages. The original 11th century settlement of “Woh-binn-ham’ (Woh -perverse or wicked; Hamsettlement; and Binn - bin) shows this. Wokingham: town which finds bins perverse.

Wokingham continued to not have wheelie bins under the reign of King Charles II, when the proud tradition of ‘bin-baiting’ was established in the 1661 will of George Staverton, who left a bequest giving two bins to be paraded around the town before being locked in the yard of the “Old Rose” pub and finally tethered in the Market Place to be baited by dogs on St Thomas’ Day.

More recently, owner of the London Times, founder of St Paul’s Church and MP, John Walter fought off a parliamentary attempt to force wheelie bins upon the borough.

During the night of 17 May 1864, the wheelie bins having been delivered to the borough the previous day, Walter organised the town’s Freemasons to hoist the scheme by its own petard, wheeling the bins just

From the chamber Cllr Wayne Smith We need a better approach to planning

We’ve been arguing for some time that Wokingham Borough Council’s Liberal Democrat-led administration’s approach to planning is fuelled by dithering, broken promises, and dismissal of residents’ views.

Their recent decision to prevent debate on a petition around development at Hall Farm is just the latest example of a leadership determined to plough on, regardless of what the public thinks.

In December last year, the SOLVE Hall Farm campaign group handed in a petition to the leader of the vouncil, signed by 1,800 residents, saying no to significant development at the Hall Farm site.

Under the Council’s constitution, there should now be a debate by councillors on how to respond to it.

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