Invalid

According to my automatic reminder system, recycling will be collected tomorrow. durham_rambler thinks that this will not be affected by the holidays, but I thought I'd check.

There's a jolly Christmas image on the front page of the County Council's website, of stockings hanging by the fire, and it promises "Festive info - opening times, bin collections, events and more". Bin collections - that's what I want, so I click it, and it takes me to a page with a number of paragraphs, each one headed with a link. The top one is "Festive period closures", which isn't how I would have put it, but the text says "Over the festive period, there will be changes to our services. This page gives information about these changes." That sounds about right. But I can't find the information I'm looking for, not on that page and not by following any of the alphabetical links it offers...

There's a feedback form, though, so I decide to be helpful and give feedback. I select the answers 'no, the page wasn't helpful' and why, from drop down menus, and in the box for comments I type: "I'm looking for information about waste and recycling collection over the holiday period. Should I assume that if there is no information, there is no change? Or is that information somewhere else? Not under T for Refuse, W for Waste or B for Bins, but something I haven't thought of?" Then I click 'submit', and the screengrab on the right shows the result.

Luckily, I'm a web design professional. I know that when the County Council tells me my opinion is invalid, the chances are that what it means is 'tl;dr'. I delete the last sentence of my comment and click 'submit' again, and yes, this time it works.

People, if your form has a maximum length for comments, why not say so?

But look on the bright side. In the process of composing this diatribe I found the answer to my question. If I had scolled on down, below "Three months free if you join a gym in December", below the fold, I would have found an item about bin collections over the holiday period. Apparently "People in County Durham are being advised of arrangements for bin collections over the festive period."

Don't know how I missed that, but of course durham_rambler was right. Better go and sort the recycling, then.