COUNCILLORS failed to give advice on North Somerset's waste strategy - because they didn't believe the officers' figures

COUNCILLORS failed to give advice on North Somerset's waste strategy - because they didn't believe the officers' figures.Members of the Environmental Services Policy and Scrutiny Panel rejected figures for the annual review of the council's waste strategy.Members said they didn't think the officers' figures were accurate after problems with waste collection in Weston.The panel was asked for their views on what tonnage to estimate for the collection of next year's domestic waste.Panel vice-chairman Peter Bryant said: "I'm sure this will cause an awful lot of problems."I did not believe the figures given to us for a minute. The officers said they were recycling compost across the district at a rate of 30 per cent."They said they were due to collect 15,700 tonnes of green waste this year, but it's more likely to be 8,000. Therefore we've paid twice the rate for the same work."The results were so erroneous that there was a doubt whether they were true."David Turner, the council's director of development and environment, said his team were cracking down on the amount of commercial waste being passed off as household and would introduce a number of new pilot schemes.He said: "I'm very interested in the panel's views on this. It's not an easy decision to make and there are differing views on it.""I'm pretty confident that the officers and the waste collection contractors have much greater control of what is happening compared to three years ago."The estimate will now be referred to the council's executive on October 24.