Issued by City of York Council
Following a review and consultation of City of York Council’s waste and recycling services earlier this year, changes to the service will take effect later this month and include amending Towthorpe Household Waste Recycling Centre’s opening hours.
Starting on Wednesday 31 July, Towthorpe Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) will remain open six days a week and will close on Wednesdays throughout the year, which is in-line with neighbouring household waste recycling centres outside the City of York boundaries.
Extensive consultation took place with York residents early this year which helped shape the changes to the opening hours at Towthorpe HWRC. Over 500 customers were consulted on these changes at the Towthorpe site during February and March.
The most popular option was to close the site throughout the year on a weekday and an overwhelming 65 per cent of people who responded to the site survey agreed with closing the site one day during the week, with a lower 26.5 per cent wanting to reduce the daily opening hours.
Wednesday was the most popular day for closure chosen by those surveyed (including those who use the site on Wednesdays).
In view of this strong support, Cabinet took the decision to close Towthorpe on Wednesdays in order to make a saving of £11,000 on site opening costs.
Alongside this, new charges will be introduced at Hazel Court HWRC on Monday 29 July for York residents disposing of brick, rubble, gas bottles, plasterboard and bonded asbestos.
Non-York residents can also take waste to the site but this will be subject to a charge of £10 per visit in a normal family car. Payment must be made at Hazel Court HWRC at the time of tipping using either a debit or credit card only.
Residents wanting to dispose of large amounts of DIY related waste materials should consider hiring a skip, using a private waste collection company or buying a skip bag from DIY stores, builders’ merchants or garden centres
Cllr David Levene, Cabinet Member for Environmental Services, said: “We are committed to providing the best possible service to residents and businesses, and recognise that to achieve this we needed to listen closely to their views.
“Following the consultation this has enabled us to hear what residents wanted before any decisions on Towthorpe opening hours were made.
“We’ve been open and honest with the public throughout this process, but given the challenging financial situation facing the council a review of all services is essential.
“The changes build on the council’s commitment to increase the amount of waste being diverted from landfill and follow the introduction of a number of improvements to the service, whilst addressing the challenging financial situation facing the council.
“Throughout the last year we’ve introduced new waste and recycling vehicles that increased productivity by five per cent, we are encouraging more home composting and are investigating a food waste business plan, which was supported by 65.3 per cent of residents in the consultation.”
City of York Council is committed to achieving a 50 per cent target rate of household waste recycling by 2020 (47 per cent of household waste is currently diverted from landfill).
These changes to the service will help make further savings to the council’s waste and recycling services but further changes will also take effect later this month to contribute towards a two-year savings target of £125,000.
For more information about the changes to waste and recycling visit the council website or call 01904 551551.
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