FURTHER to my letter in the Hereford Times (Tourists Don't Want to see a Rubbish Dump, March 5), I wrote to the chief executive of Herefordshire Council, Alistair Neill. And to his credit, I received a very detailed response, but with no real solutions to this ever increasing problem.

It turns out that the council is responsible for the A40 not the Highways Agency - so now I have that straight, what will they do about it?

According to Mr Neill "we face challenging times and have to make difficult decisions on how we maximise the impact of what are very substantial reductions in our grant from government. For our council this amounts to a reduction of available funds for services by around £70 million - with the expectation that this reduction may become greater following the May national elections."

Most people fully understand that councils are under increasing budgetary pressures but as evidenced by the level of activity of this topic in the letters page, this is surely the time for the council to properly engage with the community as opposed to letters of platitude to individuals - we are not satisfied with the prospect of living in a rubbish dump for ever more.

Continues Mr Neill: "We are only able to carry out a planned litter picking activity twice a year on main roads such as the A40." I have never seen a litter pick on the A40. I wonder if any of the Hereford Times readers have?

However, I am guaranteed that he "has spoken to our service provider BBLP on this matter and am assured that the next full litter pick will be undertaken by the end of March on the A40." This seems to be a false economy; keeping on top of the problem regularly would both reduce the size and perhaps cost of the task and in addition, would reduce the issue of litter attracting litter.

Mr Neill goes on "the reality is of course that the responsibility for litter is fundamentally with the individual who drops it." Yes, we all agree with that. So what is being done about changing people's attitudes? He continues: "As with all other regions working with a great deal less resource, we must do everything possible and within our resources, to raise in our communities a change in this fundamental sense of responsibility. It is clearly neither acceptable nor sustainable that some people simply discard litter in our streets and roads and expect local authorities to pick it all up."

Absolutely Mr Neill but all I'm hearing is budgets, budgets, budgets. Creativity with the budget is the name of the game.

My children reminded me recently that when we lived in Australia, they were not allowed to go and play in the playground at their local primary school until they had cleared up all the rubbish which the possums had picked out of the litter bins overnight. A simple but very effective way of making them look after their local surroundings. I would like to see a schools programme where the younger generation is educated in its responsibilities on being citizens who care about the local community - not just a society where out of sight is out of mind.

Says Mr Neill: "If we had less litter to pick from the streets, we would be able to direct those litter picking resources towards higher frequency of litter bin emptying. Again the limited resources that are available to us means that we operate on a reactive response where litter bins are emptied on a needs basis, with local litter picking around the vicinity of the bins. In reality this means that those bins that are used the most are emptied more frequently."

I just don't think that's good enough - do you? And I can assure Mr Neill that the bins along the A40 in the lay-bys which are certainly used the most are certainly not emptied regularly.

Mr Neill asks for communities to work together and organise litter picks. That's all very well - some of us do this on a regular basis but how can we possibly go along the major trunk roads in the county and do this without seriously risking life and limb?

He says: "We do encourage communities to work together to take an ownership of their locality and our service providers have historically provided some support to arrange co-ordinated activities such as litter picking. If you would like to find out more about this , I would encourage you to liaise with your parish council who could liaise with your Locality Steward to explore options."

Mr Neill, we've got the budget message but I am hoping that you've got our message - that council tax payers and the people who bring vital tourist pounds into the economy, are most certainly not happy.

Surely now is the time to be engaging with fast food outlets, tourist attractions, retailers, NGOs and the broader community to find a way in which we can implement an action plan.

Let's be the pioneering county and address this issue with an innovative plan for others to follow. Let's pave the way, let's be known as the clean county where people want to spend time rather than simply a place where you might stop off on your way to/from Wales that is filthy and clearly not cared about.

KIRSTIE McFARLANE, Fownhope