Spalding 'click and tip' system set to be banned

Councillors are looking to ditch the booking system used by people visiting Spalding’s tip.

Members of Lincolnshire County Council’s environment and economy scrutiny committee are being asked to approve plans to ditch the scheme, which was brought in to manage access to household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) such as the one in West Marsh Road during the pandemic.

A report prepared for the meeting, to be held on Tuesday, revealed that there were 282 complaints about tips in 2020/21, compared to just five for the whole of the previous year.

Of those, 58% were related to the booking system - although the report also notes that many visitors have expressed positive opinions about this too.

Fly tipping in the county has gone up from 881 tonnes to 1,277 tonnes - although the council notes that this is only a fraction of the 46,892 tonnes less waste taken to tips last year.

The report states: “However there is still a perception that the initial closure of the HWRCs and reopening under restrictions has led to an increase in fly tipping incidents.

“This assumes that residents who don’t want to make a booking will act illegally and it is difficult to imagine that law abiding residents will act in that way.

“In any event it is a theory which is difficult to prove unless more fly tippers are caught.

“There has been an increase in industrial scale fly tipping and bulk trucks have disposed of material on remote country roads. This type of material would not be appropriate for acceptance at HWRCs.

“It must be noted that there are still complaints from residents that fly tipping is caused by HWRC restrictions, but fly tipping has always been a problem even when HWRCs allowed unrestricted access.”

Keeping the system would cost £5,000 to upgrade software to allow more bookings.