Ware Household Waste Recycling Centre

[Matt40]

I agree with you Ian to an extent and Andrew is bang on the money so to speak. The council can't have it both ways. In a world where we are encouraged to recycle more and be 'better' citizens then it just feels with restriction on recycle centre hours, reduced bin collections etc then why bother?

[Scouter]

I wonder if there will be a significant rise in fly tipping...

[Scottman]

You can imagine all sorts of changes in behaviour because of this not fit for purpose decision : more fly tipping for the Council to clear up, more recyclable stuff in black bins, lower recycling against targets, higher costs to our Council resulting.

Surely its time the Council worked out how to encourage good behaviour, and how to reduce/discourage bad behaviour. This is a costly decision, and therefore not in our interests as Council Tax payers in the long run.

[Ian]

I agree it's counter productive, but in an environment where local government income has been slashed over the last 4 years it's probably one of the cuts that hurts least in terms of direct cost. If we want to keep the waste disposal open 7 days a week, what should we cut in it's place I wonder?

[Pat-H]

That assumes you accept that cutting is the only solution.
And cutting on recycling certainly seems the easy but daftest choice to make.

Of course this sounds just like the libraries again.
Starts with Thur-Fri closed (and as I don't work Fridays that doesn't work for me!)
Then it's more days. Then it's not being used enough, then it's online virtual only (Oh you can only do that with books!)

Yes fly tipping will increase. Of course it will. And that will make the countryside look worse and probably cost more in the long term.

[Ian]

I think it's the only solution with the current government Pat whether we agree with it or not.

Although I agree with much of what you say, I don't think that closing it for 2 days a week is actually unreasonable. I would hope that the operators and council have looked at when are the least used days and made a decision based on that, but I'd be surprised if Thurs and Fri were least used - I'd have guessed Tues and Weds myself.

I was hit by the closure last week and had to go to the Cole Green site. Yes, it's further and uses more petrol etc, but it is just about viable to use alternatives.

[Simes]

Looking at the closure days list on the council website, it think they have tried to vary the closure days so that when one site is closed there is a nearby alternative. Cole Green and Hoddesdon both shut Tuesday and Wednesday so are open on Thursday and Friday when Ware is shut.

Another useful bit of information is that Buntingford Tip is open from 5pm to 8pm Monday to Friday. Useful for getting rid of stuff during the week, especially during the winter when Ware closes at 4pm.

[Scottman]

Sorry, not convinced. It's just bonkers. They could have put up the District precept by 0.0001% and covered it. It's pence per household per year and we would never have noticed. Maybe the Council looks for ways to make us FEEL the cuts by being inconvenienced unnecessarily.

To prove how bonkers - there is a member of staff sitting in his van in front of the closed gates today, presumably to inform arrivals to go elsewhere and to prevent flytipping outside the gates of 'our' local recycling centre.

You couldn't make it up.

[Spring Viewer]

Scottman, I think your comment about the man in the van is to do with Fly-tipping. As I have noticed more rubbish dumped along the A414 towards Hatfield, i.e as you just pass the re-cycling centre there and turn right at the Holwell roundabout. It might be just coincidence with reduced opening times of the recycling centres but there's stuff dumped just off the laybys and in the farmers land. Enough for me to notice and comment to Mrs Spring View as we pass it.

[Pat-H]

They've always had reduced hours in the winter.

Council got no cash basically. People would moan if the council tax went up. If it's frozen you get no street light, tips etc. You get's to choose.

You don't actually get to chose.
We have a Tory council and they are money driven not service driven. They could and possibly will close and reduce even more services and still hold power.
It's a form of democracy.

But closing Thursday and Friday seems to make the least sense. It's almost like they looked at the 2 busiest week days and picked those to close
As far as we know it's less to do with the actual site being shut and more to do with reducing the amount of rubbish being deposited.