Several times lately people have been surprised to find the gates closed when they turned up to dump rubbish at Darlington's civic amenity site. Some became disgruntled when told the reason: it was too windy!
They would have understood it if a gale was blowing on a wild day. But each time the gates were closed it seemed to most of the public to be just a windy day that was causing no problem to anyone except the staff on this refuse site. Yes, if anyone threw a load of ash into one of the containers it might have been blown around. But those who turned up in cars mostly had garden waste or plastic bags of household rubbish which could have been thrown in without any fear of the wind taking hold of it.
It would have been quite simple for the staff to check each caller to ensure their load was safe to tip. But it seems that would have been too sensible a solution. It would have saved a lot of people from wasting their time, but that didn't matter, did it?