"I can't spend all my time looking at this standards issue and doing the job at the council, so I thought the best thing to do was to temporarily stand down for two to three weeks to deal with this matter and then get back to running what is regarded by the Audit Commission as one of the best-run councils in the country".
It is set against a background of concern that Wales is running out of landfill space, with the National Audit Office (NAO) Wales last year recommending that 500 new waste management facilities were needed by 2010.