It has emerged that Bath & North East Somerset Council will be spending just over £10 million to relocate Bath’s recycling centre to Locksbrook Road.
An artist’s impression of how the recycling centre will look | Image © B&NES Council
Objectors have this week branded it a “political failure” and asked: “How do you spend £10 million and end up with a recycling centre that is inferior to the one it replaces?”
Earlier this month, the council’s planning committee approved the plans for a new household waste and recycling centre, despite 189 objections.
The site at Locksbrook Road currently comprises the council’s street cleansing depot and a car park used by the nearby VW garage.
The current recycling centre at Midland Road, half a mile away, will close as planning permission has been secured for 176 homes as part of the Bath Western Riverside regeneration programme.
The council has maintained that Locksbrook Road was chosen after more than 50 other sites within and around the city had been considered.
But objectors to the choice of Locksbrook Road have cited concerns about flood risk, reduced services, accessibility due to a gantry system, and the impact on the local business and residential community, including environmental health, traffic safety and congestion issues.
Protestors outside the new recycling site on Locksbrook Road
A total of 19 Bath businesses have publicly opposed the scheme, including Bath Spa University.
Following the planning committee’s approval, Councillor Tim Ball, cabinet member for neighbourhood services, and Councillor Matt McCabe, cabinet member for built environment, housing and sustainable development, are now being asked to jointly sign off the funding by Thursday 8th May.
A report says that in order to begin construction, the cleansing services team will move out of the site to the council’s transport depot which is also in Locksbrook Road, and which was recently vacated by the authority’s fleet operations.
The report notes: “This site is currently not fit for purpose and requires remodelling and refurbishment.”
It says that reviewing the transport depot was part of the Keynsham Pixash Site Redevelopment Capital Project, as fleet operations relocated to the new Keynsham Recycling Hub last year.
Retaining Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) passenger transport service operations alongside cleansing services at the transport depot, and upgrading facilities, is now proposed.
The Liberal Democrat cabinet members are being asked to approve a capital budget allocation of £4.554 million to build the new recycling centre, and a further £5.543 million to refurbish units 1 and 2 of the Locksbrook Road transport depot to provide “fit-for-purpose facilities” for the SEND passenger transport service, which remains on the leased site in Unit 2, and the cleansing services team, which will relocate to Unit 1.
This includes a virement from the Keynsham centre redevelopment budget of £1.4 million; in addition, the “abortive” cost of £58,000 from alternative site proposals will revert to revenue.
The cabinet members are also being asked to delegate to council officers the power to appoint contractors.
The report explains that in order to allow the housing construction to commence at Midland Road, the recycling centre “must relocate in line with the Liberal Democrat commitment at the local elections in 2022 to maintain recycling facilities in Bath”.
It adds: “Following exhaustive site searches over several years, the site at Locksbrook Road was chosen as the most feasible and appropriate location to maintain recycling provision for the residents of Bath and aligns with the council’s climate and nature priorities and aims to further increase recycling rates across B&NES.”
It goes on: “Cleansing services currently occupy the site of the proposed recycling centre at Locksbrook Road and will relocate to the transport depot site, also on Locksbrook Road (north side) which enables them to maintain easy access to Bath Recycling Centre which will house their tipping bays for street sweepings, weed waste and litter bin bags.
“The highways service city centre team will also share the cleansing service facility to maintain efficient operations following their vacation of Argyle Works, also being developed for housing.
“The SEND passenger transport currently occupies the other half of this site and will remain here following the decision not to relocate this service to Odd Down.
“The whole site requires refurbishment to provide facilities of an acceptable standard for staff and enable efficient operations.”
This week, the Stop the Locksbrook Tip campaign group told the Bath Echo: “How do you spend £10 million and end up with a recycling centre that is inferior to the one it replaces?
“At a time when councils across the country are going bust, B&NES is lavishing huge sums of money by giving people of Bath less for more.
“The Lib Dem majority endorsed the Locksbrook tip on narrow technical grounds in the planning committee. Now we can see what the Lib Dem majority in cabinet think about the political failure that this tip represents.
“The local councillor Lib Dem Paul Roper is the cabinet member for economic and cultural sustainable development, and the Locksbrook tip is publicly opposed by local businesses as being bad for their businesses.
“Will he demand an economic impact statement before waving through the tip?
“And Councillor Henman, running for WECA Mayor on his green credentials, has been very quiet about how the Locksbrook tip fails B&NES’ environmental responsibilities in all respects: increased emissions from car travel, failing to reduce emissions through the congestion zone, and is located 12 metres away from the Avon and in the highest risk flood zone. Could it get environmentally worse?
“The people of Bath have to question the lack of transparency about this tip. Council is saying there “are no suitable, feasible sites of sufficient size and capacity within the district”, but they won’t release their review of alternatives and won’t explain why they turned their back on the former Fuller Earthworks at Odd Down: the site that B&NES previously endorsed to be the new tip.
“Instead, they plan on spending half of the £10 million cost just to relocate the current cleansing unit 50 metres across the street. That money could be used to build a full capacity, state-of-the-art recycling centre at Odd Down, and actually fulfil B&NES’ environmental responsibilities.
“Residents and local businesses are really scratching their heads on this issue. Huge sums of money wasted, services being cut, emissions being increased: the politics is simply bewildering.”
The Bath Echo sent the statement from the campaigners to the council for a response. The council did not address the issues raised in it, stating: “The planning application to build a new recycling hub on the former cleansing depot site in Locksbrook Road was approved earlier this month.
“Following that decision, the next stage is to implement the recommendations that have been made through the single-member decision report to draw down the funds to enable work to start on site this autumn and for the council to appoint a contractor.”
