West Berkshire Council recycling centres in Newbury and Padworth to open for longer hours
Councillors discuss latest plans for re-opening waste facilities during coronavirus pandemic
RECYCLING centres in West Berkshire are to open for longer after the coronavirus pandemic.
Household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) at Newtown Road, Newbury, and Padworth are currently closed, owing to social distancing guidance.
Discussing the new hours and plans for re-opening at a virtual meeting of the council’s executive on Thursday, executive member for the environment Steve Ardagh-Walter (Con, Thatcham Colthrop and Crookham) said: “We have not yet had a signal from the Government that the time is right to widen the scope of activities, which would include visits to tips.”
Mr Ardagh-Walter said the council wanted to re-open sites as quickly as possible as “a lot of people have been storing up waste of all sorts at home and it’s one of the irritations we have all had to live with”.
He said: “However, we are all aware of the risks of increased traffic and chaos and so forth.”
Leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition Lee Dillon (Thatcham North East) asked what measures were being considered, such as opening hours for postcodes or for different towns.
Mr Ardagh-Walter replied that people could get confused with a postcode system.
He said the council was exploring a booking system similar to one operated in Bracknell.
He said: “There is pent-up demand here and unlike supermarkets – there are many supermarkets in the district and they’ve been open throughout the crisis, and while throughput is lower you can park your car and queue up – recycling centres don’t have car parks.”
He added that re-opening facilities without a system “could lead to some worrying scenes on the roads”.
The council has amended the opening hours for the Newtown Road and Padworth HWRCs, effective from May 1.
Newtown Road will open from 9am to 6pm seven days a week, apart from Thursdays during September. On Thursdays it will open between 9am and 8pm.
Padworth will open from 9am to 6pm seven days a week – an increase on its previous hours of noon to 6pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 6pm during weekends and on bank holidays.
The amendments are anticipated to cost the council £20,000 to £40,000 a year and follow a trial of longer hours at Padworth last year.
Mr Ardagh-Walter said the changes would offer residents “a good, thorough and equal service” and increase recycling by allowing people to recycle more items at both centres.
He said the trial had displaced some of the demand from Newbury to Padworth, which had improved the service at the heavily-used Newtown Road site.
Other benefits had been “increasing convenience and reducing travel and the environmental consequence of that on people in the east of the district.”
But Alan Macro (Lib Dem, Theale) asked why longer evening hours at Padworth had not been considered.
He also said that Newbury could take a wider range of items than Padworth, such as asbestos and gas bottles.
Mr Macro said there had been a lot of complaints about bonfires and fly-tipping during the lockdown and urged the council to ensure that HWRCs were ready to open when the Government gave the signal.
In response, Mr Ardagh-Walter said that a demand for evening use had been low at both sites, but significantly lower at Padworth.
He said that because of this, “the economics of having to employ extra staff” meant it had not been sensible to broaden item types.
He said that bonfires and fly-tipping had been an issue and hoped an end of restricted access was near.
Welcoming the changes, Richard Somner (Con, Tilehurst South and Holybrook) said: “Padworth is an excellent facility and I’m absolutely thrilled to see there’s better equalisation of the opening times and availability to the residents in the east.