It does not seem long ago since the Drayton Waste Recycling Centre had a big revamp, but checking back on this blog it was 2006. Time for another revamp is on the way…
Queues have never seemed as bad since that revamp, and according to the 2015 Oxfordshire consultation on the use of Waste Recycling Centres there were 1.4 million visits to sites in 2008/9 and 1. 1 million in 2014/15. Usage is going down.
Oxfordshire County Council are looking to save money, because of reduced central government funding, and this is one area they have reduced the budget, and are going to make £350,000 of savings from 2017.
They have looked at various options, and it seems that the favorite option, which they are consulting upon, is to reduce the number of recycling centres to 3 or 4, and improve the ones that remain.
Currently Abingdon is well served by Drayton to the south and Redbridge to the north. Other places are less well served as – as can be seen by the map.
The aim is to keep and expand ones near larger centres of population, and limit drive times. The consultation says keeping just three recycling centres could result in centres as follows:
* Central North Oxfordshire: This would mean that Ardley and Alkerton will close
and be replaced with a new site.
* Central Oxfordshire: This would mean that Redbridge will be expanded or
replaced
* Central South Oxfordshire: This would mean that Drayton will be expanded or
replaced
The consultation can be found at https://consultations.oxfordshire.gov.uk/consult.ti/HWRCstrategy/consultationHome. It is open for comments from 6 Aug 2015 at 00:00 to 5 Oct 2015 at 23:59.
Is all that global warmage malarkey and plant resources who-ha still an issue, like everyone was banging on about a few years ago? I assume it isn’t now.
We had a problem with fly tipping in Abingdon. Favourite places to dump, Peep O Day lane etc. Someone even tipped a load of building waste on the green opposite my house. They did it at night so no one could see them. I went to the Drayton refuse site yesterday and all the bays were full. If they close some centres queues will be even longer. People are not going to drive for miles to a tip. I resent the fact that more taxpayers money is being sent abroad to the EU and foreign aid so Government are forcing councils to cut back on services in the UK. We are becoming a 3rd world country. This consultation is all about saving money.
On my local walks, looking for trees to photograph, I see a surprising amount of fly-tipping. As Janet says, closures will see a rise in this unsightly practice.
Janet: is there some confusion here? Surely, the provision of recycling sites is the responsibility of local government and has nothing to do with the funding of overseas aid and development programmes, which is fixed by central government. The amount spent on the latter is less than a penny of every pound raised in taxation for HMG’s budget; hardly a drain (I would have thought ) on our resources.
Like you, I want good local recycling facilities, but I also want a world where people don’t die because their water supplies kill them. And if I have to live more simply so that others can simply live, then so be it.
Central Government has reduced it;s funding of local councils and have told local councils to cut services ppis. There seems to be a culture in the UK of sanctioning the vulnerable in the UK as it looks better to spend money abroad. This is what the sister of a vulnerable man who starved to death in the UK said. “David was a Type 1 diabetic and sanctioned. With his electric cut off he could not keep his insulin cool to control his condition. David died aged just 59.” This is only one of the many vulnerable people who have died in the UK. It is not fashionable to care about them.
It’s not either/or Janet.
I for one am proud that we live in a country which supports the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. If this many makes even a small difference to the lives of the billion people who live on less than a dollar a day or the further billion people who live in countries where life expectancy is below 40 and childhood mortality is in high double figures.
I have some sympathy with your point about the funding of local services but completely reject your point about its association with the international aid budget. Long may we continue to spend money on international aid – frankly our colonial policies which give our country the standard of living we enjoy, created half these problems and we have a moral duty to try and help where we can.
A Daily Mail reader, a banker and an immigrant were sat round a table with 20 biscuits on it. The banker takes 19 of the biscuits, then nudges the Daily Mail reader and whispers in his ear, “watch out – that immigrant is after your biscuit.”
Boom boom.
That David shouldn’t be allowed – such scant regard for people with gluten intolerance.
It’s OK. they were macarons.
I’ve heard it all now. Those ruddy foreigners taking our recycling centres. Damn them.
Iain/Janet, I think I can see that it IS all linked. I kinda have empathy with both your points; even with my massively limited knowledge or understanding about the World we live in.
I think it is a matter of convenience that a billion people live on a dollar a day. We all want 2 t-shirts for a fiver, chocolate, coffee, smartphone. The only reason our blessed society can ‘afford’ all these things is because we needent pay for their production.
We (the west) allay our guilt (or acceptance) of all this by offering up ‘aid’.
Meanwhile our governments prop up the banking system with our taxes whilst the banking system runs at a huge profit. And if it isn’t “the banks”, it’ll be some other industry creaming the profit at others’ expense.
There’s plenty of money in the system. The system is just shot to pieces.
Still….doesn’t effect me, all this….as I tap away on my smartphone, supping my BOGOF coffee.
Well put, Iain. I entirely agree.