This has been down to the fact tonnage levels have decreased at the sites. The council said it will review the situation in six months amid concerns about a potential increase in fly-tipping and the cost of the system.
Waste management firm HW Martin operates the three HWRCs in Milton Keynes under a council contract.
David Proctor, Milton Keynes’s waste management specialist, told a meeting of the council’s budget and resources scrutiny committee last week (30 September) that the average monthly cost in the 12 months prior to the introduction of the booking system was £198,000, or £2.347 million a year.
In the 12 months since the system was introduced, the costs fell to £178,000 per month or £2.137 million per year.
Mr Proctor said: “The throughput has dropped in terms of tonnage, but interestingly the amount of residual waste is back to normal levels. But the tonnage has definitely gone down, that’s where the saving is.”
However, Mr Proctor added there appeared to be no “comparative increase” in volumes collected from the kerbside. He suggested this could be because fewer traders and “out-of-town depositors” were visiting the sites, though he said it was “still not clear at this stage” where the missing waste was going.
HWRCs
A report which went before the committee said the council paid HW Martin a fixed monthly management fee for each site, plus a variable fee for transport and disposal based on the actual waste throughput.
Income from trade and reuse sales is paid to the authority monthly.
Since 29 June 2020, HW Martin has provided a single site liaison personnel for the booking system at all three sites at a cost of around £350 a day, the report says.
Initially, capacity at the sites was set at 2,744 slots per week. Milton Keynes says there was more demand for slots “since implementation” and the capacity was subsequently increased to 8,736 in the summer and 6,552 for the winter.
Increasing the number of slots and longer opening hours increases the throughput at the sites and the management fee, including site liaison costs, the report says.
The average demand since March 2021 is 7,200 bookings per week, the report says. However, it adds that 15% of these are consistently “no shows”.
HW Martin has reported zero health and safety incidents since the implementation of the booking systems, the report says.
Fife
Elsewhere, other local authorities continue to ease restrictions. Fife council in Scotland has removed the booking system for cars at 10 of its 11 HWRCS “as the need for social distancing is not so acute”.
Councillor Ross Vettraino, convenor of the council’s environment and protective services sub-committee, said: “A booking system remains for vehicles other than cars. Vans and trailers can take a long time to unload and giving them open access could impede the smooth flow of traffic through the centres and result in traffic queuing on roads outside the centres.”
Hampshire
Meanwhile, Hampshire county council will lift the one-visit-per-week limit for residents taking waste to one of the county’s 24 HWRCs from today (4 October). However, a booking system will remain in place.
Councillor Rob Humby, the county council’s deputy leader and executive lead member for economy, transport and environment, said: “We have listened to residents and believe that now we are further into the pandemic recovery phase, and entering a time of year when, historically, demand for site visits starts to reduce, the time is now right to increase opportunities to access household waste recycling centres.”
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