Councillor Nick Cook pushing a bin around a garden.

Councillor Nick Cook makes a number of interesting points about Edinburgh’s waste collection crisis. However, he manages to overlook the key cause.

The waste collection crisis facing our capital is a direct result of cuts imposed on Edinburgh by the SNP Government. With fewer staff and no spare capacity in the vehicle fleet, is it any wonder bins lie uncollected? We can’t do more with less, and the most vulnerable in Edinburgh feel the impact most.

Indeed, in November COSLA reported that the Scottish Government had cut Council funding 10 times more than Tory austerity over the past five years. This highlighted the fact that SNP cuts to council funding were politically driven.

The budget Edinburgh is facing for 2019/20 will mean it has to make around £40m of “savings”. Councillor Nick Cook could have chosen to join Labour  in opposing these cuts, or perhaps he could have joined Edinburgh’s nationalists in ever so quietly accepting them. Instead, he chose to suggest essential public services delivered by the Council should be privatised.

Given that he completely failed to explain why this would help, I can only assume this is the Tory equivalent of a comfort blanket. I’d respectfully suggest that if he thinks privatisation solves everything he looks at the performance of Scotrail or commercial waste collection in Edinburgh.

The truth is that rather than proposing ill-thought measures to deal with the cuts,  Councillor Nick Cook should join Labour in opposing the damage Scotland’s nationalist government is imposing on our Capital.