COUNCILLOR Roy-E. Walker (Letters, April 30), not content with refusing to answer my legitimate questions about his stance on the council's recycling of domestic waste, instead has decided to confuse the issue with more "red herrings".

Firstly I did not state that we could not afford weekly collections of refuse. As Coun Walker knows there has been no reduction in expenditure on refuse collection and disposal and we are continuing to collect weekly, alternating between residual refuse and recyclables.

Meanwhile, we still do not know why Coun Walker, as leader of the Conservative group, chose to ignore the conclusions reached by his Conservative colleagues on the environment scrutiny committee, firstly that they support the alternate weekly collection scheme now operating on two rounds and, secondly, that they support its extension over the next four years to enable the council's statutory recycling targets to be met, with consequent benefit to the environment and to the council taxpayers.

We also still do not know what Coun Walker's justification is for proposing a further increase in expenditure on waste collection when it is not expected that there will be any additional waste collected.

And, perhaps crucially, we do not know how Coun Walker would fund the increased expenditure on waste collection. In the past he has hinted at substantial redundancies amongst council staff.

In his latest letter he appears to plump for withdrawing the council's membership of the North West Regional Assembly (NWRA). I wonder if that is because I am its leader? By Coun Walker's own admission, such withdrawal would raise only a tiny fraction of the cost of an extra refuse collection on just one of the rounds (£200,000 per annum).

And the bad news for Coun Walker, which Iam surprised he didn't know, is that the council would have to give 12 months notice of their intention to resign from the NWRA. Thus there would be no reduction in expenditure on those items in the current municipal year.

COUNCILLOR DEREK BODEN