Following a 12-week public consultation held from October last year, Cabinet Members agreed at a meeting today (Thursday 14 March) to the following:
Charge a fee to dispose of tyres and asbestos
This is set at £4 per tyre and £6 per sheet.
Reduce opening hours at 8 centres
We will continue to operate the recycling centres 7 days a week but we'll reduce the opening hours by two hours each day at 8 of the centres when they are typically less busy. The new opening hours will be 9.30am to 5pm each day – except at Buxton where the current hours of 8.30am to 6pm will remain due to different contractual arrangements at that site.
Trial business waste disposal scheme
The development of a trial scheme to allow registered small businesses and sole traders to pay to use 2 of the recycling centres to dispose of business waste outside of the hours the centres are open to the public. A detailed plan for this trial scheme, proposed for centres in Ashbourne and Bolsover, will be presented to cabinet at a later date for approval.
Consultation responses
There were 2,876 responses to the consultation, including 40 from businesses.
83% of residents and 80% of businesses agreed that businesses should be able to use recycling centres for a charge.
Around two thirds of respondents (66%) would prefer recycling centres to continue to accept tyres without charge, and a similar proportion (69%) would prefer that asbestos continued to be accepted for free. But 90% of respondents said they would prefer a small charge to the sites not accepting these materials at all.
78% of respondents said they would prefer to reduce opening hours and keep the centres open seven days a week, rather than maintain the current opening hours over fewer days.
No date has been set for the changes to be implemented but plans are being drawn-up for them to be introduced later this year.
Our Cabinet Member for Infrastructure and Environment, Councillor Carolyn Renwick, said:
“We’re constantly looking for ways to make the services we provide more efficient and effective.
“Having listened to the views of residents, we’re making some changes which we believe strike the right balance between continuing to provide a good quality service for residents, offering a service to help small businesses and sole traders and making savings.”