Middlewich residents have to drive past their local waste centre to take rubbish to the Pyms Lane tip in Crewe – only for it to be then transported back to Middlewich!
Cllr Garnet Marshall spoke of the irony of Cheshire East’s decision to close the Croxton Lane site at Middlewich and not allow residents access to the Ansa waste transfer site on Cledford Lane, where the entire borough’s rubbish is dumped.
He said: “We currently have the biggest HWRC site in East Cheshire but it’s out of bounds to Middlewich residents, save for a Saturday morning once a month (mobile tip) and there’s no guarantee this will continue.
“So therefore people like me will have to drive past this in order to take rubbish to another site which will end up back in Middlewich, which is crazy.”
The angry councillor was scathing of the way the council handled the “temporary” closures of the three HWRCs at Middlewich, Bollington and Poynton.
Those are all now closed permanently following the decision by the environment and communities committee this week.
“Describing the closure of the Croxton Lane site in the summer as a temporary measure could be seen as, at best, misleading and at worst, disingenuous,” he told the committee.
“The report before the committee was clearly being worked on and finalised when these statements were being made, leaving people like me to carry the can.”
And he said the council had used the statistics for usage of the seven tips across the borough, to “bolster a weak argument” for closure.
“On closer scrutiny of these figures, there is a perfect correlation between the number of residents in these towns – with Crewe being the biggest and at the top (of visitor numbers) – and some of the smallest resident populations are at the bottom, so statistics are used in this way to bolster a case for the closure of the bottom three,” said Cllr Marshall.
Tom Shuttleworth, interim director of environment and neighbourhood services, said the Ansa site was a waste transfer station and not suitable for members of the public to use as a tip.
He said there would also be safety issues with bin lorries going to and from the site.
Cheshire East Council is facing a £27m overspend at the end of this year and needs to save £100m over the next four-year period.
This is mainly due to large overspends on social care for adults and children.
Councillors voted by eight to five to permanently close the HWRCs at Middlewich, Poynton and Bollington, leaving just Crewe, Knutsford, Macclesfield and Alsager tips open in the borough.
The incompetence within Cheshire East Council is beyond belief. The Local Authority will fail to save money by this policy. Fly tipping and the associated cost will soon exceed any immediate savings. Cheshire East Council have this ability to fail to plan, they may not plan to fail. They fail to consider the unattended consequences of their short sighted policies.
The key to the organisation is an complete overall of their top heavy management structure. Salaries, pension costs and excessive cost of sick leave should be the starting point. They are charging for the garden bins . They have failed to disclose what their current operating surplus is on this very expensive service. They now charge for new replacement bins even when they have been damaged by their own collection process.
Sadly the arrogance of the executives, some counsellors is beyond belief.
They go out to public consultation then just ignore the feedback.
You can not expect anything else from these clowns,they are both inept and strangers to the truth,in the hope that we the tax payers will except there outrageous tax increases that are both planned and already being implemented.
Total Joke the only people they are serving is themselves, they are not interested in you or me.
I do apologise to those adherents to carbon footprint and all of that. What is being missed is that somehow closing those 3 tips saved a quarter of the 100 million shortfall (over a 4 year period) that would otherwise only take 3 months to spend. Go read the article again – how can you expect that method of mathematics to stand up to scrutiny. CEC are hoping you miss that and any other jiggery pokery they cite to aid their agenda. Both the central AND local/council governments are solvent – if there are people out there that truly believe the tripe that governments are and going broke you need to wake up. The mountain of taxation that is moved into both local and central government coffers on a daily basis is beyond mind boggling. Picture the lying Sherriff of Nottingham in the movies when the King comes for his taxes and you may just get a clearer idea.
How does this help CEC’S carbon neutral policy aim for 2025. Perhaps, CEC would please explain especially to those from Middlewich who are directly affected. Watch the silence.