Tip closure temporary

A tip saved from closure after a campaign by residents will close temporarily for improvements.

Fiskerton Household Waste Recycling Centre, on Fiskerton Road, Southwell, will close at 4pm on Sunday and is expected to reopen on February 25.

A spokesman for Veolia, which manages the site on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, said there would be a general upgrade of the site.

The spokesman said bigger signs and better colour co-ordination would make it easier for people to see where to put different types of rubbish.

“We want the tips to be pleasant places to go,” he said.

The spokesman said alternative facilities were available at Cotham and Bilsthorpe.

The county council cabinet member for environment, Mrs Stella Smedley, made the decision to keep the tip open until March 31, 2012, subject to planning and licensing permission and new facilities.

Its long-term future is subject to a countywide review.

The decision followed a public outcry after the Advertiser revealed that the tip was set to close on March 31, 2006 — the day before a recycling centre was due to open at Bilsthorpe.

The closure decision was made in secret by the council’s former portfolio holder for environment, Mr Terry Butler, 18 months previously but not announced.

The council claimed the site was under-used and expensive to run and that recycling centres should close once adjacent landfill operations had finished.

The Fiskerton landfill site stopped receiving waste in 1999 and there are no plans to use it again.

Mrs Smedley agreed in February 2006 that the tip should remain open while a public consultation was held, and its future was finally decided in March last year.