Civic Amenity Sites: PDF 40 KB - East Lindsey District Council

LOUTH HOUSEHOLD WASTE RECYCLING CENTRE
BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR EAST LINDSEY NORTHERN AREA
COMMITTEE MEETING 12 SEPTEMBER 2012
The revised opening times at the above location came into effect on 1 April 2012,
and were as a direct result of the budget adopted by the County Council in February
this year which required a saving of £1.215m to be realised on the provision of
HWRC. This followed on from similar cuts in the previous year which had included a
reduction of five posts from the “back office”.
The quotes received for the re-tendering process for new HWRC contracts from 1
April 2012 have enabled the County Council to keep all of them open, but to achieve
the targeted reduction in expenditure it has been necessary to change the opening
hours and days.
The new times were chosen after analysis of the actual usage of the HWRC’s, and
the revised days and opening times were chosen to reflect those periods where the
most people would be unaffected.
The option of staggered opening of HWRC’s across the county was considered, but
the view taken was that as far as possible a standardised approach to opening would
be easier for site users to understand.
It is inevitable that any changes to front line services will have an impact on the
public until the new routines become widely known. In order to try and minimise this
articles were organised in all the local papers and on the local radio advertising the
changes, signs advertising the changed times were clearly displayed on site, leaflets
were distributed to site users and an article was included in the County News which
goes to all households in the County. This was a full page item on page 7 and
included all the new site opening times.
It is a sad fact that fly-tipping was already occurring from those not prepared to use
HWRC facilities, but it was not accepted that the reduced opening hours would
automatically turn law-abiding citizens into fly-tipping criminals. It must also be noted
that a lot of what was being dumped was commercial in origin from small businesses
seeking to avoid disposal charges. This material would not be acceptable at HWRC’s
which are only permitted to accept domestic waste.
Initially waste was being repeatedly left at the entrance to the site, but signage
warning against this was installed and this behaviour has now ceased.
There was also queuing at the site due to the opening time having been put back
from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. but this again has mostly stopped now residents have become
aware of the revised opening times.

The County Council has received complaints about the revised opening times and
also from residents who turned up to find that the site was not open. All complaints
have received an individual reply explaining the background to the decision.
It is worth noting that very few complaints are received about the operation of the site
itself, and indeed a number of those complaining about the reduced availability were
very complimentary about the staff and standard of the facility.
A review of the impact that the changes to the service have had will be undertaken
and if affordable measures can be found that will improve the situation then those
will be implemented whilst staying within the reduced budget envelope available for
the operation of this service.
That said the County Council does need to make an overall saving of £125m and
has prioritised vital services like gritting and the protection of vulnerable adults and
children. This has meant that tough choices are needed in other areas as
expenditure is reduced, and Waste Services cannot be excluded from this process.