Leaflets said to show a "giant" pulling a new wheelie bin have created a dust-up in City Hall.

The literature has been sent to hundreds of families throughout Baildon who will be the first in the district to switch to the controversial wheelie system from traditional dustbins next week.

Cartoons on the leaflet show a man pulling the wheelie bin with one hand and another depicts him smiling as he kneels to clean out a bin with a mop.

The leaflet describes the wheelies as lightweight and gives full instructions on using them.

But Baildon Liberal Democrat ward councillor John Cole described the literature as "shallow spin-doctoring". He asked: "How can a 240-litre wheelie bin be described as lightweight?

"If Labour are insisting a full wheelie bin is lightweight then I'd like to see them lift them in the air.

"The cartoon is, I assume, more impressionistic than realistic, since they've drawn the bin too small or they think the average person in Bradford is eight feet tall."

The chairman of the waste management sub-committee, Coun Keith Thomson, said the cartoon was meant to demonstrate that people should pull the bin, not push it. The bins were lightweight, even with half a hundredweight of rubbish inside."They balance well and are not heavy."

Villagers, meanwhile, have been expressing their concerns to cleansing officials who attended Upper Baildon/Tong Park Neighbourhood Forum. Chief among the issues were fears that the elderly and disabled would be unable to put the bins out.

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