Two exciting bits of news for our petition. Firstly, I've had a response from the council. Secondly, we made the front page of The Fenland Citizen! On Sunday evening I sent an email to Mark Mathews, the Head of Environmental Services at Fenland District Council (FDC). I put seven questions to him. He responded to some of those questions yesterday. I can't say that I'm filled with optimism. I asked a series of questions about how the changes will affect vulnerable people - particularly those families on very low incomes, people with disabilities and people with mobility issues. I was told that no Equality Impact Assessment has been carried out but that one will be prepared before the issue is put to councillors later in the year. I asked about discounts or exemptions for people in these vulnerable groups. I was told that no discounts or exemptions were a part of the scheme being put before councillors. I'm surprised that the council has come to this conclusion BEFORE carrying out the Equality Impact Assessment. Make of that what you will... I'd asked Mr Mathews what percentage of a current council tax bill is spent on brown bins. I was told that this cannot be answered because the council receives funding from many sources but doesn't attribute any of its expenditure to a particular funding source. I asked Mr Mathews whether households would be permitted to put small amounts of garden waste in their green (landfill) bins. I was told that this is not permitted, "although any tolerance of this would need to be a conversation with the County Council who are responsible for treating and disposing of the waste in the area". This essentially means that FDC can blame Cambridgeshire County Council for not allowing this to happen - although it clearly did happen before landfill and garden waste were split into separate collections. I asked Mr Mathews what plans the council had in place to measure any potential increase in incidents of flytipping or rejected bin collections. He told me that the council currently collects statistics on this and provides those measurements to Defra. This will continue and performance will be measured against those statistics. I'm not completely satisfied with these answers - in particular, those relating to the Equality Impact Assessment. I will push for this assessment to be carried out correctly and will ensure that councillors are aware of its findings. In better news, we have made the front page of this week's Fenland Citizen! I believe it will also be in Friday's editions of The Cambs Times and The Wisbech Standard. It is already on the websites of all three and I've had some initial interest from BBC Cambridgeshire. It might be my name in the articles, but this isn't about me - it's about the 600+ of you who have signed the petition so far. It's about the people who are worried about how they will afford this new charge in tough economic times, the people who are worried about food waste sitting uncollected for a fortnight, the people who cannot physically get to the nearest recycling centre and the people who have already seen their lives affected by severe cuts to front-line services. This news coverage proves that we can make a difference when we pull together. Such prominent coverage proves that our campaign has momentum and makes it difficult for the council to ignore. Please continue to share the petition with your friends to strengthen our case. Best wishes, Lawrence