Thursday 4 August 2016

Reaching a tipping point !

The Raynesway tip in Derby has reached a tipping point in relation to usage.

The operation of tips - often know these days as Household Waste Recycling Centre sites or HWRC sites for short in Derby and Derbyshire was handed to Resource Recovery Solutions (Derbyshire) Ltd often referred to as RRS a number of years ago now. The operation of the sites which span the county of Derbyshire forms part of the joint waste contract which is linked to the controversial Sinfin waste incineration plant in Derby UK.
 
The councils pay RRS to run the sites and RRS dispose of the waste via whatever route they see fit. They hand that job to HW Martins who appear to run the sites for RRS. The councils pocket some money for waste electricals which are recycled but it appears any other income from recycling is not pocketed by the councils - and so we give money away.
 
The Raynesway HWRC site in Derby is the only recycling site the residents of Derby can take their waste for disposal to. As the city expands one thing that doesn't expand is the Raynesway tip but one thing that DOES expand are the queues that build outside the site of residents waiting to empty their cars. The reason behind these queues is open to debate but one thing is for sure, the controversial £40 brown garden bin charge applied to Derby residents has led to an increase in people looking to dispose of garden rubbish at the tip. This was predicted a number of years ago by myself at a Full Council meeting. The risks were ignored and now along with other issues such as an expanding city and residents from outside of the city using the tip, the HWRC site and the surrounding road structure can no longer cope.
The Derby Telegraph has given the subject of the traffic chaos at the tip pages of coverage over time highlighting the impacts it is having on local businesses with even the suggestion it is causing rubbish to be dumped in areas around the site. plans were published for a change on the site so that more cars would be able to queue on the site although this was recently dropped - mystery surrounds this but the council claim they are working on an alternative.
An out of the box suggestion was suggested by myself to help deal with the situation in the form of a webcam viewing the road to the tip - as is used in Birmingham so that residents can view the queue allowing them to decide if its an ideal time to attend the tip to beat the queues. While published in the Derby Telegraph the council does not appear to have run with this suggestion.

There are 10 HWRC sites in Derbyshire - 1 of those is in Derby and the other 9 are in the county - one of which is run by waste management company SITA - the rest being run by RRS.
Derby as a city continues to expand and areas surrounding the city which are technically in the county become parts of the city by default as residents consider themselves to be from Derby - even if technically they are not. As time passes this puts an ever greater strain on the cities single tip leading to ever greater queues at the tip. Residents in the county living lose to Derby may consider that it is better for them to visit the city tip instead of their own which may be many miles away. Only recently I met a South Derbyshire resident who uses the Raynesway site in Derby because technically her tip was many miles away in Bretby. She said "why would I drive that far when Raynesway is so close?"

Derbyshire County Council publish on their website population estimates for the county and city. They predicted that in 2014 the population would be

DERBYSHIRE 779,800 (with 9 tips)

DERBY 252,500 (with 1 tip)

This is shown here
http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/community/about_your_county/population/population_estimates/

So while Derby is struggling to get by with one tip for over a QUARTER OF A MILLION residents the county on the other hand is lording it up with one tip per 86,644 residents - based on County Council population claims.

BUT NOW IT GETS WORSE

The Derby Telegraph are now reporting in their latest reports that Derbyshire County Council are looking to ban Derby residents from county tips but the city does not propose a similar ban. To read more on that subject check out this Derby Telegraph story
http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/no-plans-to-ban-people-from-outside-derby-using-raynesway-tip/story-29571778-detail/story.html

BUT HOLD ON!

THIS IS THE SAME COUNTY COUNCIL THAT WANTS TO SHIP LARGE VOLUMES OF ITS WASTE TO BE BURNT IN THE CITY OF DERBY FOR THE NEXT 25 YEARS.
FUNNY HOW THE COUNTY DOESNT THINK TWICE ABOUT SENDING ITS WASTE TO THE CITY WHILE BANNING THE CITIES RESIDENTS FROM COUNTY TIPS.


©SIMON BACON 2016