SIR: My husband and I had our first Covid vaccinations at Badger Farm Community Centre on Sunday 31/1/21. We would like to say how impressed we were with how the centre is being run. Everything was so well organised and ran very smoothly. They were handling people coming in so that no one had to wait very long at all and then after our jabs we were shown where to sit and a time clock was switched to 10 minutes and we were told when that went off we could leave. We would like to say thank you to all those volunteering their time on a Sunday and congratulate those who had organised this smoothly run centre and the surgeries involved in contacting us beforehand.

On a less happy note, yes we have hand sanitisers at various points in the city, but sadly it seems no one seems to realise they do need refilling! More often than not they are empty! For the past few weeks when my husband does our shopping on a Friday morning all three (Abbey Gardens, bus station and outside Iceland) have been empty!

Secondly, why have Winchester City Council decided to issue all householders (optional) with a new brown bin for garden waste for £39 per annum? If we decide we don’t have enough garden waste we can continue to use our green bags for the same annual charge instead. What is this about? We see it as a stealth tax. We, like our neighbours, have small gardens, ours has decking and we just have pots of small shrubs and flowers. We do at certain times of the year use our green bag but definitely this does not warrant a charge of £39 per annum! When this happens we are sure there will be much more fly tipping locally as what else are folk to do with their grass cuttings etc? The council will then incur costs to remove this garden waste from our lay-bys, roadsides etc. When we receive our new council tax bill in April I expect WCC will have increased this also.

John and Wendy Hunt,

Water Lane,

Winchester