FIRST, inheritance tax. Then the clear-out of the Lords. Now, so help us, the aristocracy will have to push their wheelie bins to the end of their sometimes lengthy drives.

Scottish Borders Council has discovered to its dismay that its dustbin lorries have been travelling an extra 14,000 miles a year to collect the rubbish of lairds whose back doors are often far from the road.

Ordinary Borderers always had to haul their rubbish to the gate, but for years the council has emptied the bins at the doors of private estates. The serice will end in April.

The council was astonished to find how long it took bin lorries to enter and leave estates. Ending the service will save the council £17,000 a year.

The gentry are incensed. Earl Haig, of Bemersyde House, near Melrose, the son of the First World War general, does not relish the prospect of dragging his rubbish 200 yards to the road at the age of 87.

“This seems a bit unfair, and I am sure there are a great many people who will suffer from this change,” he said yesterday. “It is the taxpayers who are paying for the running of the council, and they have not been very sympathetic.

“In my humble opinion they are directing too much money elsewhere and neglecting the basics. If you don’t pay your taxes to get your bins emptied, then what do you pay them for?” The council said yesterday that it was willing to discuss any problems that the planned changes might cause.

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