“What a fucking excellent scheme,” said District Councillor for Eynesbury ward, Paul Marcel. “We set ourselves a load of secret targets we knew we probably wouldn’t hit, like processing all waste in the same day, and not having a big queue of cars on the road outside the new Marston Road tip.

“By not telling anyone the place was open, and hiding the signs for it behind trees, we’ve managed to hit and pass our targets on day one of operation! Fantastic!”

Town Councillor Terrence Dougall, dangerously risking thinking for himself once again, said “This is a bloody marvellous idea; what legend thought that up?” When it was pointed out to cllr Dougall that it was in fact the mad scheme of a Conservative, rather than Liberal Democrat, member, he spat “What a pissing ridiculous plan. How am I supposed to recycle all this crap in my garden if I don’t know where the tip is? I mean I can’t even find Marsden Road on the map.

“Furthermore,” he continued, “I’d like to know what our local MP Jonathan Gerdangly has been up to on his holidays; why wasn’t he around to open the dump?”

Residents were equally underimpressed as Dougall, sixty-odd, who is fast taking Derek Miles’ crown as the crankiest Lib Dem representative. Naseby Gardens homeowner Scott Adams, 50, said, “I’d be pleased with the new ‘recycling centre’ if I ever had anything to recycle, but since the missus left me I only need one of those half-sized blue bins.”

Duck Lane resident Miranda Rankin, 44, voiced her concern that “it’ll just become another place for these twats in Nova’s to hang about at night, won’t it. There’s something that attracts them to a shithole – which must be why there are so many in St Neots to begin with.”