A ‘lack of information’ into plans to shut up to four waste and recycling sites across the county, including Richborough, and/or reduce hours at 10 sites has led to county councillors agreeing to form a task group to produce a draft public consultation document.
Councillors met today to discuss plans to launch a 12 week consultation in July over the proposed closures which are part of authority budget cost-cutting measures.
Kent County Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, Susan Carey told the meeting that action was needed towards budget savings of £55 million.
She said: “Back in February we agreed a budget which had a very clear line in that about reviewing the number and operations of Household Waste and Recycling Centres. I want to be very clear about this, this is a measure to save money as part of the painful savings that lay ahead of us.”
Cllr Carey said a 5% rise in council tax does not cover the costs ahead and to help achieve the £55m ‘savings’ £500,000 needed to cuts from waste centres this year and another £1 million next financial year.
She added: “The issue here is how do we make our savings with the least impact on all the residents of Kent.”
Three options have been put forward:
Option 1 closure of sites at Dartford, Richborough, Maidstone and Faversham
Option 2 closure of Faversham, Maidstone and Richborough and 10 sites not co-located with a transfer station to close for two days per week
Option 3 Closure of Dartford, Faversham and Richborough and 10 sites not co-located with a transfer station to close for two days per week.
It means all options would lead to the closure of some sites- with Richborough named in all three – with two options closing fewer sites but reducing the opening hours on a number of the remaining sites.
A 12-week consultation with the public and with other stakeholders takes place on these options in July.
‘Paucity of information’
But councillors said they could not make a decision on the consultation due to the ‘paucity’ of information in the report and no draft consultation document being included.
Lib Dem leader Antony Hook addressed the meeting to outline the shortfalls.
He said there was not enough financial detail and predicted savings should be broken down for each site. He questioned the predicted savings from paying business rates and workforce, pointing out that 50% of business rates would be received into the council budget and cutting workers would mean redundancy costs.
He raised the issue of capacity and whether remaining sites would cope with the extra footfall and he asked how pushing the burden of extra travel – both in cost and more pollution – on to residents could be justified.
‘Union dispute’
Margate representative Barry Lewis said three choices, all including the closure of Richborough, was akin to “saying how would you like to be killed: hanged, shot or poisoned?”
He also said there would be a union backlash at imposing reduced hours, adding: “You’re heading for a major dispute with the unions if you implement any of these options.”
Thanet councillor Derek Crowe-Brown said closing Richborough would cause “absolute chaos” and be disastrous” pointing out there were already safety issues for people accessing Margate waste centre and an expected population rise due to housing developments.
Reduced hours and closures also raised concerns of fly tipping problems being forced onto district and borough councils.
A call for a fourth option of ‘spreading the pain’ across all sites, meaning a reduction in hours but no full closures, was also raised.
Dover’s Cllr Trevor Bond suggested a fresh report with all the required information and mapping out of long term effects be compiled and brought back to committee on July 5.
However, Cllr Carey was insistent that delays could lead to “bigger, more painful” cuts.
It was instead agreed that a task group of councillors across all parties would give input so a draft consultation document could be put together and brought to the committee ahead of the planned consultation launch on July 18.
KCC currently operates a network of 19 Household Waste and Recycling Centres (HWRCs) spread across the county. The sites receive approximately 1.7m visits per year, with around 96,000 tonnes of material being managed through the network.
