West Lothian residents fume 'why do we need to book quiet recycling centres?'
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The need for residents to book time slots to visit West Lothian recycling sites has been questioned by a local councillor.
A booking system was introduced during the Covid pandemic for reasons of social distancing.
The council's Executive decided two years ago to introduce a full-time booking system for the sites to coincide with the reduced hours at the recycling centres.
Broxburn's SNP councillor Mike Carlin said the question of the continued need for booked slots to use the recycling centres had been raised by constituents at a community council.
Questions he had been asked why the slots were needed post Covid.
Discussing the work of Operational Services which includes the CRC sites and cleansing team at the Environment and Sustainability PDSP Councillor Carlin asked: 'Why are we still having to book slots at the recycling centres.?'
He added: 'This question came up at a community council. Now we're through Covid and going through a quiet period. Why are we still having to book slots at the recycling centres?"
Fellow SNP councillor Veronica Smith asked: 'The feedback is that the centres are very quiet so that's why the questions were asked about why we need to book.'
Head of Operational Services David Maule, said: 'The reason for having a booking system is to ensure we have a safe environment for staff and members of the public, with moving traffic.'
'I've looked at the usage figures, they are all fairly busy. I'm not sure they get too many quiet times. I think there are very good reasons for safety that we should maintain the booking system at centres.'
The current booking system was confirmed in October 2023, at the same time as hours at the five recycling centres were reduced as part of cutbacks to save £330,000.
Councillors have also argued that many people without transport are losing out on the service because they cannot access the recycling centres on foot. At local area committees recently the surge in fly-tipping around communal bin areas has also been highlighted
Mr Maule's predecessor as head of Operational Services had argued at the time that the service would be improved because people would not have to sit in traffic queues to get into the centres.
Following initial closure during the Covid lockdown some centres notably Oakbank at Livingston saw massive traffic tailbacks which needed police control.
Councillor Carlin's local CRC suite at Broxburn, along with neighbouring Linlithgow, had its opening hours cut back considerably. Across the county the centres are open for 144 hours a week - down from 280. Both Linlithgow and Broxburn are only open one day during the week and on afternoons or mornings at the weekends.
For Broxburn the opening hours are: 10am to 6pm Thursday, 2pm to 6pm on Saturday and 10am to 2pm Sunday.
The changes were met with sustained complaints initially. However in June last year the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported: 'Despite the cut in hours introduced last October and the introduction of the booking system there's been no loss of customers with 191,000 bookings made between October and April.
More than 13,000 people booked slots at West Lothian's recycling centres but never turned up with their rubbish .
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