ENVIRONMENT chief Martin Quaile (pictured) has defended plans to bring in fortnightly bin collections in the Dean.

Former cabinet member Venk Shenoi (Con, Churcham and Huntley) has urged him to wait and see what Minister Eric Pickles is planning.

But Coun Quaile says the Dean cannot afford to tear up years of work and bin its plan to go green.

Councillor Shenoi has sent an open letter to all councillors urging his colleagues to go back to the drawing board.

The leading Conservative says the council has got its sums wrong and the new system will mean "a whacking great bill" for the taxpayer.

He concludes: "Keep the weekly bagged residual collections. That is what the people out there like and want – and avoid the vermin, gull and fox problems associated with collecting refuse fortnightly which has substantial amounts of food waste remaining."

More than 300 of 433 councils have fortnightly collections and local authority recycling officers claim reversing the policy will put pressure on budgets and reduce recycling rates.

But Mr Pickles, Minister for Communities and Local Government, has hit out at what he branded "barmy bin rules" and ordered a review.

Coun Martin Quaile (Con, Littledean and Ruspidge) says the district council and other councils believe tearing up existing contracts and binning strategies that have taken years to draw up will be a costly business.

He says the Dean will continue working towards implementation in 2012 and education is the key to long term success.

"The Gloucestershire Waste partnership has written to the Minister expressing concern about the turnaround," he said.

"If it is a national policy it could mean reversing everything. We would just have to be pragmatic about it and start again."

He points out that Mr Shenoi never got involved in any of the groups set up to draw up the new system which will mean residents getting a wheelie bin which will be emptied once a fortnight.

Householders will get a separate container for kitchen food waste which will be picked up weekly and asked if they want to pay £26 a year for weekly collections of garden waste.

But Councillor Shenoi claims the council are underestimating how much it will cost.

He claims FODDC are following the Cotswolds which shells out over £4 million per year on rubbish collections compared to around £2.5 million in the Dean. I want the Forest of Dean District Council to sit down and think for themselves," he said.