A FEW days ago a correspondent wrote from Bitterne Park to complain that his blue bin had not been emptied.

This was, of course, because of the strike, but no attempt was made to compensate for that with an extra collection.

I hope the council enjoyed the savings they made from not paying those involved. They were, of course, under a moral obligation to refund those of us who paid to have our bins emptied.

Fat chance, I doubt that anyone involved even knows how to spell moral obligation.

We suffered the same inconvenience of unemptied bins as a result of the strike, so today (July 24), we put out our blue bins according to the published schedule (together with the green bins), expecting the accumulated rubbish to be cleared.

That was too much to hope for.

This evening, as I write, the blue bins remain unemptied. It is too late to phone and complain, but I will do so tomorrow morning and, having sat on the phone for a fair length of time, I will no doubt receive an apology – if I am lucky.

My number one query is why do public servants think an apology is adequate recompense for incompetence of the part of either the contractor or their supervision of the contractor?

And what about the councillors we elect? What are they doing to control what goes on in the Civic Centre?

And just who decides some of these incompetents are paid £100,000 a year when they are clearly not fit for purpose?

DR A R DRYSDALL, Bitterne, Southampton.