Cheshire East councillors today voted to permanently close three tips to shouts of “absolute disgrace” and “shame on you” from angry members of the public, writes Belinda Ryan.
The cash-strapped authority is facing a £27m overspend at the end of this year and needs to save £100m over the next four-year period.
The three tips at Middlewich, Bollington and Poynton were temporarily closed in August ahead of a review of household waste recycling centres.
Today (Sept 26) the environment and communities committee voted by eight to five to make the temporary closures permanent.
That’s despite being presented with a petition signed by more than 7,000 people, and residents and councillors from each affected town speaking against the proposals.
Sutton councillor Chris O’Leary (Con) said: “We’re told that there is only one option that we can agree to, because that’s the only one that is affordable.”
But he said he could not vote in favour of closing the tips because the committee had not been provided with the proper data.
He said councillors had not been shown the consequences of the closure of Congleton tip in 2021 and there was no evaluation in the report about the mobile service set up when Middlewich, Bollington and Poynton tips were “temporarily” closed.
Cllr O’Leary said there had also been no environmental assessment of the impact of these closures.
“We’re talking about requiring residents in Poynton and Disley to travel at least 30 minutes each way to get to the Macclesfield recycling site,” he said, adding there was nothing in the report about the environmental impact of the additional CO2 “let alone the environmental impact of fly-tipping”.
Knutsford councillor Tony Dean (Con) said the savings this would make were “a tiny pimple on the face of the problem”.
“This will do nothing to stop us hitting S114 [effective bankruptcy],” he said.
“It’s not going to help at all and it’s such a painful thing to do for our residents.”
Wybunbury Cllr Janet Clowes (Con) said she remained unassured by the proposals for a mobile tip facility – saying listening to residents it has been “a little bit of a disaster” in one case.
Wilmslow councillor David Jefferay (Ind) said: “What it comes down to is one criteria and that’s affordability.”
He said the council could not afford the other options [of keeping them open].
“If we do go into S114 these changes will happen anyway. These sites will be closed, so we need to look after the pennies,” he said.
Macclesfield councillor Ashley Farrall (Lab) said: “Even though it’s something none of us want to do, we’re in a financial situation where we must act or be acted upon.”
Cllr Mary Brooks (Macclesfield, Lab) said: “We do need to deliver a balanced budget and what are the alternatives?
“If we don’t make this decision, it’s just going to worsen the situation for our other services, our libraries.
“We don’t want to be taking more out of the library service for instance.
“How often do we go to the tip? Two or three times a year?”
The vote was named, with the five Conservative councillors on the committee voting against the closures.
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