IT ALL makes absolute sense, and so very simple – a stunning idea, thought through by genius: Don't grit the majority of the Moorlands' side roads and pavements then the bin wagons can't collect the rubbish but council tax can still be claimed for actually doing the job. Perfection.

Oh, and while this cunning plan is in operation, make sure the car park of, and roads to, Moorlands House are gritted beyond belief so people can still arrive to pay their bills.

And should the supply of grit ever run low, there would also be a large reserve right there at our council HQ.

It's been a bleak midwinter all right but I can't get my head round those who are already talking about reducing the grit stocks for next year.

Obviously they are from the tropical south of Staffordshire who think the Moorlands is another country and to venture here would be to fall off the edge of the world.

We are experiencing global climate change – have you noticed how the words 'global warming' are now proving somewhat irrelevant? – and our winters are becoming more erratic, so it's hardly time to be talking about cutting the grit stocks.

I've got to hand it to those guys on the gritters, those men – and women – who have been out and about all over Christmas, the new year and into mid-January keeping our main roads open.

Not only have they done a first-rate job, they have risked their own safety in so doing.

It would have been satisfying if some of the bosses from Stafford could have experienced what they have been up to, then there wouldn't be all this nonsense talked about reducing supplies.

It's been desolate and inhospitable in many parts of the Moorlands, not least up at Quarnford and Flash, and here I speak from experience.

Some of my friends and former neighbours up there have been isolated for many weeks and cabin fever has almost set in. Only last week there were still drifts of 15 feet or more in height and I know of one person living at Morridge who rescued five motorists in the space of an hour or so with his old and trusty Land Rover.

There's more grief to come up there, because Staffordshire Wildlife Trust appears to be threatening to chop down even more trees in Gib Tor Woods. I had rather hoped the charitable organisation would have seen sense by now and left what remains as a nature reserve but I fear that tunnel vision has taken over and it's looking to be a foregone conclusion that all those pine trees must, eventually, go: at least as far as SWT are concerned.

Thank goodness there are still many who will put up a fight to the bitter end but the whole business is a huge sadness that, in my opinion, has all been so unnecessary.