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Voters from Wescott ward will be voting in the Wokingham Borough Elections at St Crispins Leisure centre today
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Opposition urge voters to bin Tories at the polls today

By Lucy Allen
May 03, 2012

Wokingham's electorate will head to the polls today and reveal whether the borough’s new bin collection scheme has prompted them to trash the ruling Conservatives.

An across-the-board win for Liberal Democrats at Friday’s count will not be enough to defeat the Wokingham Conservatives’ majority on Wokingham Borough Council, however opposing parties have been campaigning hard to win votes based on mistakes made in the waste scheme roll-out.

Meet the borough election candidates

Councillor Prue Bray, leader of Wokingham Liberal Democrats, claimed this week a survey of nearly 1,000 people in the borough showed most people are “unhappy” with the new waste and recycling scheme, which launched at the start of April.

Cllr Bray, whose seat is not up for re-election this year, said: “At the moment the Conservatives are not doing a good job running the council. They are taking people for granted and not listening.

“They have made several bad mistakes including the rubbish collection.”

She said the Lib Dems will continue to argue for concessions on the green bin scheme, which costs £60 annually per household for a wheelie bin, for pensioners and people on low incomes.

They will also argue for a more equal distribution of bags so that households get different numbers of bags depending on the number of people living there.

Conservative Cllr David Lee, leader of the council, said he accepted mistakes had been made in the waste collection scheme, however criticised the Lib Dems for not producing an alternative idea to tackle high landfill figures.

He said: “I think we have achieved a lot with the people of Wokingham. There have been complaints about waste, but we have already got a 10 per cent reduction in landfill.”

The Green Party, UKIP and Labour, as well as two independent candidates, are also hoping to win seats at this week’s elections.

The results of the council election will be revealed on this site as they are announced tomorrow.

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Most recent user comments 7 of 7

I wrote to my Conservative council candidate with questions on the 'flyer' they put through my door, I had a half-hearted and incomplete reply (despite the flyer indicating questions were welcomed) and when I asked further questions they were ignored. Dianne, if you are reading this, I never give up. I shall be writing to Mr Redwood asking him what he thinks of his Conservative candidates lack of response to the electorate. As some here have said, the Conservatives have stopped listening - and in my case stopped replying.

Colin Barbasiewicz, Wokingham

Colin B, Wokingham
03/05/2012 at 21:31

I reckon the turnout will be the lowest for years - hardly surprising when no one has canvassed. My polling station was like a turkey farm on Boxing Day. The only pollster outside collecting numbers was one of the candidates. On my way out they said "thank you for coming out today." Quite right as well - especially when they couldn't be bothered to come out and see me in the last few weeks! Not sure they would have thanked me if they had seen where my X went -my first defection ever - and rightly deserved.

Tru Blue NoMore, WOKINGHAM
03/05/2012 at 17:20

You should always vote for the individual and not the party in local council elections.

'Word on the street' is that turn out is going to be quite low.

I P Freely
03/05/2012 at 16:36

Bob, I think we all know what will happen - although I'd love to be surprised by the result, the Tories will retain the council. Sadly. Because people generally vote the way they voted last time, or the way their dad voted. I don't know quite how people can ever bring themselves to vote for that blue party, personally, but for some reason they do.

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
03/05/2012 at 15:46

So if the Lib Dems do not win this election this must mean that the people of Wokingham Borough consider the Lib Dems to be more incompetent than the current Tories. Let’s see what happens.

Bob knows best
03/05/2012 at 14:10

A vote for the Tories is a vote for:

-The rubbish scheme. -Library privatisation. -Reduced social care. -Stealth taxes. -Unsustainable developments. -Your views being ignored.

Take this opportunity; kick the Tories out.

Matthew S. Dent, Wargrave
03/05/2012 at 12:04

So ceasing to collect all the rubbish people need to put out is the con-merchants' way of reducing the amount going to landfill. That is YOUR plan? So if you stopped collecting waste entirely you would save even more. Don't you think you should budget for the proper cost of the only servbice we use? What we need is more people (non-cons) at WBC who can bring a bit of sense to this lot. Vote for anyone else!!