Essex County Council to impose recycling booking system

Despite residents in South Woodham Ferrers making clear they thought it was unnecessary, Essex County Council is set to introduce a permanent booking system  for using the town’s household waste site.

The South Woodham Ferrers Residents Party (SWFRP) made the point that as a lower use site that rarely experiences queuing, a booking system was unnecessary and counter-productive.

Instead in its one-size-fits-all approach, Essex County Council has decided from disposing of an afternoon’s grass cuttings to an unwanted kitchen, we will all need to go through an unnecessary inconvenience of booking.

A SWFRP survey submitted as part of the consultation, and ackknowledged in it, found 40% of people would reduce the amount of times they used the HWRC and hold on to their waste for longer. 62% rejected the booking system for South Woodham Ferrers.

ECC's own consultation report found that 47% of Chelmsford district residents disagreed with the proposal (the second highest district out of 12 in the county). There is no breakdown for how many of these residents were from South Woodham which is why we conducted our own survey.

The SWFRP also found that the council has not evidenced what it calls 'transference' of waste from other sites, i.e, if there is a queue at say the Maldon HWRC, that people might drive over to South Woodham Ferrers to dispose of their waste.

And there has been a concerning increase in flytipping in the Chelmsford district since the introduction of the booking system.

The council meeting to decide on the introduction of the system tomorrow (27 Feb).

The consultation reports can be found here  and here