Minutes:
The meeting received a presentation which outlined the current position with regard to Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRC) in North Northamptonshire.
It was noted that North Northamptonshire Council hosted the statutory waste functions of the former County Council, including HWRCs, Residual Waste Disposal and management of closed landfill sites. The HWRC contract was managed by the council with the service provided to West Northamptonshire Council via an Inter Authority Agreement.
The meeting heard that there was a network of nine HWRCs in the county, with four located in North Northamptonshire and five in West Northamptonshire receiving over a million visitors annually combined. In addition, four trade sites were in operation in the county, two in the North and two in the West. Items for re-use were collected at all sites and taken to one of seven off-site re-use outlets.
An overview of delivered service efficiencies was provided, with the meeting noting that changes to HWRC opening hours introduced in February 2015 continued to achieve savings of £450,000 per annum. The HWRC E-Permit Scheme for commercial type vehicles introduced in October 2018 to stop free trade waste disposal also continued to provide savings of £200,000 per annum.
Details of service pressures faced resulting from the Covid pandemic were provided to the meeting, who heard that demand for use of facilities had remained high throughout, with vehicle numbers on occasion being over 100% of that normally seen pre-Covid. Despite this, total HWRC waste tonnages had decreased by almost 12% from 2019/20 to 2020/21. Social distancing measures required by government guidance had resulted in fewer vehicles being able to unload at any one time, consequently, at peak times, queues of vehicles had to wait to access the HWRCs which impacted the highway. The lifting of social distancing regulations on 19th July 2021 had allowed a return to pre-pandemic operations, although this position would be kept under constant review.
Aside from a short period of closure during the initial nationwide lockdown, a full service had been in operation at HWRCs throughout the pandemic, with additional costs of £30,000 accrued for signage, restarting the service, initial Traffic Management and monitoring across all sites. A further cost to the service of £55,200 resulted from the provision of time-limited additional opening hours being introduced between 29th March and 30th June 2021.
Opportunities for transition and transformation across the service were provided to the meeting, who noted that service budgets were having to be managed alongside increasing demand and costs, although the move to unitary authority status offered an opportunity to consider the issue of waste management from collection to disposal and to optimise waste infrastructure. It was noted that economies of scale could benefit the council if waste collection and disposal was brought together, and this would form a significant piece of work going forward.
Following the presentation, members asked a number of questions in regard to:
· Queuing in and around HWRC sites, with reference to the negative impact on local highways, especially at the Rushden and Corby sites.
· Construction of new HWRC sites
· Layout of sites
· Improved education/communication with residents to ensure the correct recycling materials were placed in the correct bin
· Policing of non-county residents using HMRWs in Northamptonshire
· Income levels for recyclates, noting the disposal cost to the council of green waste