A senior Herefordshire figure has hit out at the “total negativity” of online responses to the county’s planned new weekly food and garden waste collections.

Speaking as the county council’s ruling Conservative cabinet formally backed the new kerbside arrangements, which must be in place by next March, member for transport Cllr Philip Price said: “It’s a dead certainty that this is the direction we have to take and we have everything in place to do it.

“So I was taken aback by the total negativity on social media about this. I wonder if there is a mindset to just be negative about everything we try to do,” he said.

“Something good should have some positive response.”

Council leader Jonathan Lester replied: “Yes, you would have hoped so.”

Online commenters have questioned the cost of the scheme, the inconvenience of an extra bin, and the possible problem of vermin being attracted to food waste.

“It gets very tedious – we do our best for Herefordshire,” Cllr Price said afterwards.

“Yet every announcement we make – well, I give up after the first ten comments,” he said. “Half of them will be off-track. Which they wouldn’t be if people had an inkling of the decision-making process.”

Having just spent three hours dealing with residents’ emails, he added: “The workload has increased dramatically because of this. It has an impact on my family.”

In his own area of transport in the county, he insisted: “The roads are better, thanks to £23 million we have spent in the last 18 months, which is far more than in previous years.”

And despite complaints over how rising council tax revenues in the county are spent, the council has little flexibility over statutory obligations to provide its two main areas of expenditure, adult and children’s social care, Cllr Price said.

The council’s new waste proposals were backed at the meeting by group leaders of the Independents for Herefordshire, Green and True Independents groups. The Liberal Democrats were not represented.

Cabinet member for environment Cllr Elissa Swinglehurst added on the issue that though government funding has been secured for the kitchen “caddies” and larger food waste containers for roadside collection, these have not yet been ordered and indeed the council cannot yet say what colour they will be.