The following press release from Spelthorne Council relates to Surrey County Council’s consultation on shaping Surrey community recycling centres (CRCs) which was the subject of an extraordinary meeting of Spelthorne’s Overview & Scrutiny committee held on 31 July:
County Councillor Mike Goodman, Cabinet Member for Environment, and Richard Parkinson, Waste Operations Group Manager at Surrey County Council (SCC) explained to the committee that Surrey faces ongoing cuts to funding, rising costs and increasing demand for key services which has created the need for the County to find savings of more than £100m this year alone across its services.
The proposals for reducing the SCC waste budget include changes at CRCs across Surrey. The consultation about these changes, which closed on 7 August 2017, included options for reducing operating hours and days, stopping no charge allowances and closing some smaller CRCs.
Members of the Committee and Jackie Taylor, Group Head of Neighbourhood Services at Spelthorne Borough Council (SBC), raised concerns that reducing the access and allowances at Charlton Lane for residents created the risk of increased fly tipping which would have both a financial and environmental impact for both the County and the Borough Councils.
Cllr Ian Harvey, Leader at SBC, pointed out that as the Eco Park (on the site of the Charlton Lane CRC) would be operating 24 hours a day 7 days a week it was difficult to see how significant savings could be made from reducing access to residents.
The accuracy of the fly tipping data being presented at the meeting by SCC was also called into question.
Cllr Colin Davis, Chairman of Spelthorne’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee said: “A key concern for both councillors and members of the public who were invited to have their say at the meeting was how the proposed changes might impact residents using the CRC at Charlton Lane. There are also clear concerns about fly tipping. It is therefore important that the County works with the districts and boroughs to create a common framework assessment for capturing accurate data and measuring the impact of fly tipping”.
