Brighton and Hove City Council and CityClean have sent out a questionnaire about communal bins, asking for the views of affected Hove residents before February 25. The questionnaire insults the intelligence of its readers. Of course we prefer clean streets to rubbish bags spilling out over the pavement.

But we are not offered a choice of bins, we have to accept the oversize, black monsters proposed by CityClean.

Communal bins are common in many other European cities as the questionnaire says, but what we are not told is that in other cities they are generally smaller, greener, more convenient - and in some cases located in well-landscaped access areas. Crucially, in many European cities they are emptied daily. Are we being given a choice? Of course not.

The real reason we are offered industrial mega-bins is that very large bins means fewer collection rounds and smaller crews. The council wants desperately to cut costs.

Some local residents will see their property values decline because an industrial-size bin has been placed directly in front of their home. Others will have to walk much further to dispose of their rubbish - great exercise when it's blowing a gale in mid-winter.

Nor does the council mention that in those areas of Brighton where large communal bins have been introduced, fly-tipping, hygiene and noxious odours are reported to have become a serious problem.

People might be far more amenable to accepting communal bins if they were given a real choice rather than a questionnaire where the answers are a foregone conclusion.

The black mega-bins are an eyesore which no continental European city would tolerate.

  • George Irvin and Lindsay Knight-Irvin, Third Avenue Hove