Owain wrote:
But if the LAs lose funding from the Govt, local taxes might rise but
central taxes should drop correspondingly, so the overall tax burden should
stay the same. (It won't of course.)

Not quite... all this stuff on recycling, landfill etc arises from a
battery of EU directives that have come into force over the last decade.
The penalty for non-compliance is, potentially, unlimited fines of the
member country, so the tax burden would rise and only the EU coffers
benefit...