Surprised

I am not one for usually expressing my views outside my circle of friends or colleagues, however on this subject of 'Fly Tipping' that was in the Portishead Times this week it made my blood boil. I am surprised that there hasn't been more fly tipping around the area and now that it has started I very much doubt it will now end. I have lived in Portishead all my life - don't get me wrong I work throughout the UK so I know there is life outside Portishead. The Portishead tip is vital for the population we have now. I heard from one colleague that she took her rubbish to Backwell tip to find she had to wait for 1.5 hours to get in. This is unacceptable but obvious as Backwell is a very small tip, so the other option we have is to drive to Clevedon get on the motorway and drive to Weston and wait in the summer holiday traffic. I have recently been doing some hedge cutting and gardening to my garden and it was easier for me to pay a private man and van to collect and take away at a cost of £80. I thought I would go down the village and get some green bags as my dustbin men said they would not take the garden waste, but when I went to the village they never had any but I was told to buy the brown paper ones. I bought 12 and filled them up. For weeks they stayed at the bottom of our path? And in the end I paid for it to be disposed and all this mounts up especially when council tax is £99 per month or £1,188 per annum.I think the residents in Portishead should get a reduction in there council tax bill until this gets sorted out. Maybe that would make them sort something out, I can remember the old tip in Portishead only had about five skips but at least that was better than what we have now. There is a lay-by down Valley Road - I'm sure they could put some skips there for now and get them emptied daily. Back in the old days we had a lot more. I can remember when we had at least five garages that sold fuel, now Portishead has tripled in size what do we have now? A Waitrose garage that's not even 24-hour? And the flow of traffic was a lot better - we never had to wait by the White Lion every morning for 15 mins trying to get out of Portishead,Then I turn a few pages in the Times Paper to read that they are talking about creating a new coastal path section from Clevedon to Weston which would be nice, but I took my family which consist of my partner and three kids for a bike ride last month and thought it would be nice to take them along the coastal path from Portishead to Clevedon as this was something I used to do when I was younger. The path was that bad and overgrown that we had to turn around as it was unwalkable let alone ride able. So before we start talking about more work shouldn't we be thinking about maintaining what we already have. I think Portishead has changed for the worst, more interested in building more houses, and bringing more families in. Which would bring me onto another gripe, since they are talking about now about bringing a congestion charge into Bristol. Instead of making everybody's life miserable in the mornings trying to drive to the motorway junction, why in 20th century haven't we got our trains running from Portishead to Bristol. I'm sure the traffic chaos would halve at the peek times.Marcus Dale - The Deans, Portishead