They will go booking-free this week allowing the city’s residents to turn up and dispose of their waste and recycling
Birmingham’s Castle Bromwich (left) and Sutton Coldfield (right) household recycling centres in Tameside Drive and Norris Way respectively are going ‘booking-free’ this week (Image: Google)
As Birmingham’s ‘all-out’ bin strike rumbles on towards its third month, the city council has made another change to its tip visit rules.
The city has five Household Recycling Centres (HRCs), where residents can bring their rubbish as well as their recyclables, and from Wednesday (April 30) two of these are to go booking free.
Residents in the city, who have suffered bin collection misery since January, and severe disruption since Unite the Union members went on an all-out strike from Tuesday, March 11, have taken to heading to the city’s tips to dispose of their black bags.
READ MORE: Birmingham bin strike latest – all we know ahead of crunch mediation talks
And BirminghamLive reported a bit of a north south divide when trying to book visits to the city’s recycling centres last month.
In a bid to help residents dispose of rubbish, or recycling, which the city council is not currently collecting, the authority is making visits to two sites booking-free.
These are the Norris Way recycling centre in Sutton Coldfield.
And the Castle Bromwich recycling centre in Tameside Drive.
The booking system is to be ‘temporarily removed’ from both sites from Wednesday, April 30.
A pile of bin bags in the Selly Park area of Birmingham(Image: Alexander Brock/BirminghamLive)
Residents will be able to visit the Sutton Coldfield site and its Castle Bromwich counterpart anytime during their extended opening hours.
For both sites these are Monday to Friday from 7am to 9pm, or on Saturdays and Sundays from 8am to 6pm.
Slots at the city’s three other household recycling centres will still need to be booked in advance but they too have extended opening hours.
READ MORE: Major Birmingham bin strike mobile tip announcement as boss says ‘full review’
The Kings Norton site in Lifford Lane is open from 10am to 10pm Monday to Friday and from 8am to 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
While both the Perry Barr HRC in Holford Drive and Tyseley one in James Road are open 7am to 9pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 6pm at weekends.
At those three sites there are restrictions on bookings.
They cannot be made less than two hours before anyone wants to go to the centres.
Slots can also not be booked more than three days before their visit.
And only two bookings can be made at the same time – which can be for the same day or week.
Once two visits have been booked, the next booking can only be made the day after the first of those visits.
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Anyone attending an HRC must bring a form of ID to show their proof of address as living in Birmingham.
This can be a driving licence, utility bill or a council tax bill, either paper or digital.
Bookings can be made for household waste only – not business waste.
Meanwhile the mobile household waste centre service – bin lorries going out to different locations in the city each day for residents to take their waste to – are being ‘paused’, as those crews tackle waste built up at grot spots.
And talks are set to take place this week with ACAS the (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) as an intermediary, in a bid to end the bin dispute.
With warm weather forecast this week, residents will be hoping for a swift resolution to the bitter bin strike before the problems become worse.