On Thursday afternoon, Fenland District Council invited its councillors to attend a seminar. At the seminar they were given more information on the proposed "brown bin" charge for garden waste collections. During the presentation councillors were told that the council expects the biggest uptake to be amongst elderly people in the district. This is because older people are less likely to be able to take their waste to the tip themselves. This once again supports the argument that this charge will hit vulnerable groups the hardest. Despite all of this, the council admitted that it STILL had not started an Equality Impact Assessment to try and understand the actual impact on vulnerable residents. Instead, the council said that they were waiting for the consultation to end before carrying out the assessment. This means that the Equality Impact Assessment will be a total whitewash, or the council is prepared to waste taxpayers' money on a consultation that could be deemed a waste of time by a future impact study. At one point the councillor leading the presentation said that "we can all find 70p per week". This view is exceptionally out of touch with those struggling by on state pensions, war pensions, job seekers' allowance and even those on low-incomes who can ill-afford yet another bill to pay. This new financial burden might be made easier for low-income groups to bear if the council allowed residents to spread the cost through monthly instalments, but the council was against this idea as they felt it might push up the administration costs. Fenland has the highest levels of deprivation in Cambridgeshire. We have the highest proportion of children living in poverty, we have the highest proportion of children eligible for free school meals, we have the highest proportion of working-age adults earning the minimum wage and we have the highest proportion of working-age households in receipt of tax credits. These groups will be hit hard by this new charge, when we already pay more in council tax than anywhere else in Cambridgeshire. Out of 44,000 households the council has had 4,000 responses. Many of those are from people opting not to pay the £40 per year charge. We've got almost 1,500 signatures on this petition sending a clear message that residents do not support this new stealth tax. Please continue to share this petition with your friends so that we can make our voice even louder before councillors make a final decision on this scheme. Best wishes, Lawrence P.S. Just 22 signatures off 1,500 at the time of writing! Please remember to tell your friends!