Recycling centres to stay open for 3 days a week

Powys County Council has bowed to public pressure and will keep all the county’s household waste recycling centres open – but for only three days a week.

Plans to close two Powys household waste recycling centres were shelved for a year by the council’s cabinet yesterday (Tuesday).

And the news was welcomed by Welshpool’s new County Councillor Graham Breeze at yesterday’s meeting when he called on Councillor John Powell, Portfolio Holder for Waste and Recycling, to guarantee there would be no further reductions.

Councillor Breeze, who encouraged Welshpool Town Council to call a packed out public meeting about the plans said: “While I welcome the compromise proposals I have been asked by the people of my ward and indeed from the Welshpool area to express reservations.

“It is absolutely and categorically clear from the survey, the public meeting and petition responses that the people who use the Household Waste Recycling Centre at Welshpool are opposed to any closure of the facility.

“I urge the Portfolio holder and his cabinet colleagues to fully commit to ensuring there is no further reduction to the household waste recycling centre service across Powys.”

The cabinet had been considering plans to close two of the county’s five household waste recycling centres, including Potters in Welshpool, in a bid to reduce spending by £700,000 and carried out public consultation on a range of proposals last autumn.

Cabinet Member for Waste and Recycling, Councillor John Powell said: “We set out a range of options to reduce the service’s budget to meet demands set out in the council’s medium term financial plan. Those options included closing one or two of the five household waste recycling centres in the county, reducing opening days, charging for certain materials, restricting commercial type-vehicles or a combination of the proposals.

“The public have made their views very clear and I am recommending that we shelve plans to close centres for at least 12 months. However, savings have to be made and I will be recommending that we reduce the number of days the centres open as an alternative to outright closure.

“We will also have to increase the charges we make for trade waste permits and restrict the type of vehicles that can use them. The centres are designed to take household material for recycling or disposal that is not collected from the kerbside. Large amounts of material produced by household renovations or commercial operations should not be taken to the centres but disposed of using a skip or trade waste contract.

“More than 800 residents responded to the consultation, as well as 70 letters and petitions with 5,300 signatures with the majority objecting to plans to close centres. Following the feedback the cabinet provided an additional £200,000 to the service reducing the savings demand to £500,000 for 2017/18.

“The changes, along with increased trade waste charges, introducing compaction at some sites along with restriction of commercial vehicles, will deliver £200,000 savings leaving a shortfall of £300,000 for the year. The cabinet is being asked to fund the shortfall for 12 months to give the service time to plan additional savings,” he added.