A FORMER senior councillor says he is “overwhelmed” by the public response to his petition demanding that garden waste collections are reinstated across the region.

Andrew Farquhar wants the opportunity to publicly present the case for a U-turn at the petitions committee of Scottish Borders Council which scrapped the fortnightly kerbside uplifts for 38,000 households on March 31.

“I believe enough evidence has since come to light to show it was a grave mistake,” said Mr Farquhar, a retired depute divisional police commander who represented a Hawick ward as an Independent from 2003-2007, latterly as SBC’s portfolio holder for education.

His petition states: “We the undersigned want SBC to reinstate the garden waste collection service”.

The launch was revealed in our sister paper The Peeblesshire News on Friday.

“I’ve been overwhelmed with the response from Peebles and the demand for forms for people to fill in,” said Mr Farquhar.

“I am, of course, aware of the huge impact this decision has had in Hawick, but the more signatures we can get from across the Borders, the better chance we have of getting the council to see sense and restore the service.” He believes the current crop of SBC’s elected members may not have been in possession of the full facts when they voted to abandon the uplifts, ostensibly to save the council £475,000 a year.

And he cites the recent revelation in the Border Telegraph that many householders are now putting green waste out with their general waste – thus increasing the amount going to the council’s landfill site at Easter Langlee in Galashiels.

That, he claims, has resulted in SBC already being due an extra £70,000 in Landfill Tax to HM Revenue and Customs.

“I don’t believe councillors were aware that, in 2012, a total of 7,526 tonnes of garden waste were taken away for composting and that all that has now been lost,” said Mr Farquhar this week.

“On the council’s own admission, the decision means the overall rate of recycling will fall by 6% to just 37% - and this at a time when other local authorities, in striving to meet Scottish Government targets, are proudly proclaiming recycling rates as high as 50%.

“Even if councillors were prepared for SBC to become a recycling pariah, I wonder if they were aware that Landfill Tax was due to rise by 11% - from £72 to £80 per tonne – the day after the green bin uplifts were scrapped.” Mr Farquhar believes councillors should have been given details of the already spiralling Landfill Tax bill incurred by SBC.

That is a reference to last week’s Freedom of Information response from the council confirming that the amount of landfill payments flowing out of Newtown St Boswells increased by 27% in the last three financial years.

The figures show that in 2011/12, the council paid £2.325million in Landfill Tax. This rose to £2.652million in 2012/13 and hit £2.950million in 2013/14.

“With the rate of tax now at £80 a tonne and with garden waste now going to landfill, it casts serious doubt over the alleged saving of £475,000 a year and this is before we take account of the devastating social impact of the decision,” said Mr Farquhar.

“Few councillors will, I imagine, not be aware of difficulties faced by their constituents in disposing of their garden waste, especially the elderly and those without transport.

“The recent incident in which the fire brigade was called after an elderly lady tried to burn the waste in her garden and ending up setting fire to a neighbouring property is perhaps an extreme example.

“But many other older folk are simply giving up creating garden displays, which is a great shame, or having to fork out money which they can ill afford to pay for contractors to dump the waste.

“From every angle – environmental, economic and social – this was a terrible decision which I hope councillors will now see fit to reverse.” SBC’s petitions committee, which comprises seven councillors, five of whom represent the ruling administration, does not accept online petitions.

Readers wishing to obtain the forms electronically and print them out are advised to contact Mr Farquhar at handnanfarquhar@btinternet.com Signatories must be aged 16 or over and be resident in the Scottish Borders.