AN ANGRY resident has accused his local council of petty officialdom gone mad after they refused to empty his bin because the lid wasn’t shut.

Peeved Paul Hanger, who took a photo of the offending wheelie bin, says the lid was only ajar about an inch.

The married father-of-two, who returned home to find no explanatory note, had to contact the council to find out what had happened.

“It is simply ridiculous,” said the 40-year-old computer engineer.

“It is just common sense to take it away. This is such petty small-mindedness.

“Think of what the bin men used to take.”

And Paul, of Landers Reach, Lytchett Matravers, is well-placed to comment, as during last Christmas’ winter weather he showed true community spirit by flying in the face of health and safety culture and helping his neighbours.

“Our road hadn’t been gritted and the bin lorry couldn’t get along it.

“So I took a trailer and my 4X4 and emptied some of the road’s bins,” he said.

“I took about half of the rubbish from each bin and transported it to the local tip.

“Even then I had to get special permission from the council.”

Paul was told if the rubbish at the top of his bin had been in a bag, the bin men would have removed it, emptied the bin, then placed the bag back inside.

“To make matters worse, we are on a fortnightly bin collection here, so now it will have been a month before my bin is emptied,” he said.

Paul discovered his still full bin on Monday morning.

A Purbeck District Council spokesman said: “Since 2005, Purbeck District Council has operated a closed lid policy.

“If a lid is not closed completely there is a risk to the bin collector.

“An overfilled bin reduces the collector’s ability to ensure that it is correctly mounted onto the lifting mechanism – regrettably a collector was killed in Gloucestershire last year because of an overfilled bin.”