Among other changes to its waste service, Wiltshire Council wants to make us book in advance to use our household recycling centre.
Salisbury is one of four sites chosen for a trial run of this scheme, which the council believes will reduce queues and thus air pollution from frustrated motorists allowing their vehicles to belch out fumes over Churchfields while they wait.
Except that it assumes we all plan our lives to the nth degree and know what we’ll be doing during any particular 10-minute time slot, say a week next Sunday.
Dunno about you, but if the weather’s fine we might decide to pop down to the coast. Or to blitz the Triffids in the garden and dispose of a bootload.
Life’s like that. Who knows what it’s going to bring in the next 24 hours, let alone seven days? And who wants to store a small mountain of stuff once it’s on its way out?
Yes, a booking system operated during Covid, but we had nothing else to do back then.
I’m glad there are going to be separate food waste collections – that’s long overdue. But whether it’ll make the switch to three-weekly black bin collections acceptable – imagine those sacks full of dirty nappies in hot weather – remains to be seen.
I do suspect that fly-tipping – something Wiltshire has made great strides in tackling in recent months, with more than 60 fines issued – is likely to increase.
Anything that makes responsible recycling harder is a mistake. These changes are well-intentioned. But I’d like to be convinced that complicating the system will work. I really hope it does.
Which reminds me. Do you recall an announcement back in 2018 that tip users would have to produce ID to prove we live locally? What happened to that one?
I can think of a much better idea to make it easier to use. One that’s been floating around for donkey’s years.
Move it. Somewhere not at the bottom of a dead-end road. Not in a potentially beautiful riverside location that could be put to so much better use.
Our Neighbourhood Plan team drew up a strategy to gradually relocate some of the most polluting uses of the industrial estate and replace them with a mix of housing and small-scale workspaces more suited to this sensitive environment. You can Google it if you like. But Wiltshire Council vetoed it.
I wonder whether the current administration will eventually grasp that nettle?
Happy Christmas!
Cllr Annie Riddle (Harnham West)
Independent member of the Salisbury City Council administration