Cash-strapped Suffolk to close seven HWRCs

Suffolk county council is to close more than a third of its household waste and recycling centres under a raft of measures designed to help save the council 43 million in 2011/12.

Councillors last night (February 17) agreed the county council’s budget for 2011/12 which aimed to prioritise savings by reducing running costs of some services and safeguarding frontline services as much as possible.

Overall the council needs to find 43 million of savings from its 2011/12 budget and a total of 125 million of savings over the next four years as it adjusts to the 28% reduction in funding from central government.

Suffolk said that a short-term’ saving would be achieved by closing seven of its 18 household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs), which will help the council achieve 2.3 million in savings from its waste services budget.

Councillor Lisa Chambers, portfolio holder for waste, said: “Working with our contractors, careful consideration has been given to which sites could close and we have been especially mindful to keep a good spread of sites across our rural county, as we know this is important to residents here in Suffolk.”

Cllr Chambers added that the intention was to ensure that the remaining sites would mean that no resident needed to travel more than 20 minutes by car to dispose of material.

HWRCs

Household waste and recycling centres have emerged as one of the most vulnerable areas for council cuts as local authorities seek service savings (see letsrecycle.com story).

And, the announcement by Suffolk follows hot-on-the-heels of the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority tabling plans to review and potentially close a vast number of its sites earlier this week (see letsrecycle.com story).

Suffolk intends to close the seven sites on May 9 2011, these sites are: Beccles; Bramford; Brome; Chelmondiston; Ingham; Newmarket; and, Southwold. The closure date has been set in May in order to allow sites to remain open over the Easter weekend and extra Bank Holiday caused by the Royal Wedding.

Furthermore, site opening hours for the remaining sites are set to be reduced by two hours-a-day in the summer and between one and two hours in the winter months. However, the council said the new times will not impinge on busy periods at the sites.

Fly-tipping

And, the council has sought to downplay fears regarding an increase in fly-tipping caused by the closures.

Cllr Chambers said: “Fly-tipping is both anti-social and illegal. We’ll be working with our partners in Suffolk’s district and borough councils to prosecute anyone who breaks the law in this way and we will make sure the area around any closed sites is kept free of rubbish.”

In addition to the closures, the council intends to generate more revenue from the existing 11 sites by allowing trade waste to be deposited at its Foxhall and Bury St Edmunds sites from April 1 2011. The council intends to charge on a sliding scale, with 20-a-load for trade waste delivered by car up to 55-a-load delivered by transit van.

Suffolk’s household waste and recycling centres are operated by Northampton-based waste management firm Waste Recycling Group (WRG), which took over the 30 million management contract from Viridor in May 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story).

The council said that 17 staff employed by WRG currently work at the sites set to close and said any enquiries about redundancies should be directed towards the waste management company.