But there’s some sense to it
I don’t know if you remember that joke about needing your passport if you wanted to go north of Watford Gap Services.
Well, I didn’t realise I needed one to visit my local recycling centre!
We’d taken some old bags of concrete that had got wet and therefore were solid and some old tins of paint.
We drove in and were looking for a space when a man indicated for us to stop.
When I wound down the window he said: Have you got proof of residency?”
I was a little taken aback by this, and as I don’t carry my driving licence on me and having thought I had no need for a passport, I said “No”.
After explaining we would need this the next time we visit, he let us in.
It seems that, as we live close to the borders of two other counties, some of their residents are driving across county borders to bring us their recycling.
As I know from my time on the District Council, recycling and waste services are not a cheap thing to do, so I can see they want to make sure it’s just county residents that visit.
Another example of the difficulty in keeping up with rules changing.
And the consequences of not knowing can be a lot worse than not being able to visit the local recycling centre.