ALL household waste recycling centres in West Northamptonshire to temporarily open SIX days a week

All household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) in West Northamptonshire will be open six days a week to deal with increased demand during the pandemic.

The working schedule was already introduced at the Sixfields site from Monday, March 29 in a bid to reduce queues of traffic attempting to get in. Now, the schedule will also be implemented at the sites in Brixworth, Daventry, Ecton Lane and Towcester from Saturday, May 1 until June 30. The service will then revert back to the five-day-week schedule.

A spokeswoman for West Northamptonshire Council said: "Demand for the HWRCs has remained high throughout the Covid-19 pandemic - thought to be because residents have had more time at home to ‘spring clean’ do DIY, and to implement gardening projects, which all generate waste.

"The social distancing measures which are required by government’s guidance to be in place at all HWRC sites means that fewer vehicles are able to unload at any one time, and this slows throughput. As a result, at peak times, queues of vehicles waiting to access the sites can impact the highway.

"Opening six days a week aims to give people more choice of when to visit the sites, thereby reducing the volume of visits at any given time."

The measures will see all sites open on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday and some sites will be closed on either Tuesday or Thursday in accordance with their normal rota.

This newspaper asked West Northamptonshire Council if a booking system will be introduced.

West Northamptonshire Council executive director for place and economy, Stuart Timmiss, responded: “We have continued to monitor the situation with extra resources in regard to traffic management, as well as increasing the hours on some sites, however we do appreciate the ongoing pressure and will be announcing more improvements soon.”

The council has urged residents to consider if a trip to the tip is needed and provided the following advice to reduce the number of trips and make visits quicker:

◾ Consider if waste can be safely stored at home

◾ Make fewer visits but with larger loads

◾ Separate waste into different recyclable materials before a visit to make disposal quicker

◾ Check the HWRC opening hours before their trip on West Northamptonshire website.