Plans to pump £8million into improving two Suffolk rubbish tips have been agreed, with work expected to begin next year.
Suffolk County Council’s cabinet unanimously approved the plans for a £6.5m overhaul of Foxhall Recycling Centre and £1.5m for a new site in Haverhill at its meeting on Tuesday.
The approval of cash will mean Foxhall can accommodate more vehicles on site to reduce queuing on the road, get rid of the steps up to containers which present a trip hazard, improve drainage and reduce the need for the site to be closed for containers to be compacted or moved.
At Haverhill, a new site in Homefield Road has been identified rather than extending the current centre in Chalkstone Way, which will be able to meet the need for housing growth in the area.
Conservative cabinet member for waste, Paul West, said a consultation during the summer on the Foxhall plans resulted in no objections, and planning permission is set to be approved by the head of planning in the next few weeks.
He added: “We are committed to ensuring the Foxhall site, and all sites in Suffolk, will deliver excellence on safety grounds, enhancing capacity and customer experience generally.”
The proposals were part of a £14.5m fund back in 2018 for improving four centres in Suffolk – Foxhall, Haverhill, Stowmarket and Ipswich.
At that time, projected costs were £3m for Foxhall and £1m for Haverhill, but a series of factors including the highways work and improved drainage, as well as general cost rises in the construction industry, has meant those numbers are now higher.
Work on finding new sites in Ipswich and Stowmarket is ongoing, but Mr West said identifying areas which met all the criteria was “taxing”.
However, opposition Labour group deputy leader Peter Gardiner raised some concerns over the inflated costs.
“I am surprised some of the obvious issues were not flagged up earlier in the process,” he said.
“To go to nearly double [for Foxhall] seems somewhat poor with some of the estimating being done, and perhaps highlights one of the areas where history has shown we have some very difficult budgets put forward for capital schemes.”
Leader of the Liberal Democrat, Green and Independent group, Elfrede Brambley-Crawshaw, urged the council to encourage a culture change that would see people use less waste in the first place.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here