Will the hours of the recycling centre at Badentoy be extended? That was one of the questions posed at Portlethen Community Council, when discussing whether it should open for more than five days a week, and perhaps even open one evening a week.
I took this up with council officers, and I was told that they will assess the situation once the household waste and recycling centre (HWRC) has been open for a year.
“Towards the autumn time as we approach the anniversary of the opening last December, we will need to consider whether the current pattern of five days of opening continues or whether we introduce a seven day opening, as is currently in place for all of our larger HWRCs.
“We will be looking to make recommendations for future opening at Portlethen and across all our HWRCs around late summer/autumn as part of the Aberdeenshire-wide HWRC strategy that we are currently developing.
“Our HWRC Strategy will look at opening hours/days as well as materials that are accepted, tonnage of waste handled at sites, site layout and other issues such as acceptance of trade waste. As part of this we will also consider evening opening and the need to balance constricting budgets with customer demand.
“The opening pattern at Portlethen is allowing us to try something different and gather information that we can use in making recommendations for the HWRC service across the Shire and therefore in the meantime will not looking to make any changes or introduce evening opening.”
Officers assure me they will welcome feedback from the community council about the local HWRC, including the facility layout, the materials recycled, the staff and the current opening pattern at the site, for example.
It was emphasised though that it is important to highlight that as part of the strategy the aim is to introduce more consistency across the council’s sites to provide the same level of service to customers across Aberdeenshire wherever possible, whilst working within ever tighter financial constraints.