Backwell Recycling Centre to stay open despite closure plan

A recycling centre will remain open after a budget-saving proposal to close the facility was scrapped.

North Somerset Council planned to close Backwell Recycling Centre to save £300,000 a year but residents strongly opposed the plans.

It was part of a wider bid to reduce the council's £17 million funding gap.

"Like all councils across the country, we face continuing inflationary cost pressures and stretched resources," said Councillor Mike Solomon.

"We've listened to residents and the strong feeling against proposals to close Backwell Recycling Centre and acted on this by removing this from next year's budget."

There were approximately 80,000 visits to the recycling centre in 2021/22 and it is one of three in North Somerset.

If the closure went ahead, local people would have had to take their recycling to Weston-super-Mare or Portishead instead.

"We continue to work hard to explore cost savings that could be made right across the council to close the budget gap for next year, which is about 10 per cent of our net budget," Mr Solomon added.

"Unfortunately, we're having to make really tough decisions.

"We have one of the best recycling rates in the country currently and we will continue to encourage people to reduce, re-use and recycle as much as possible by delivering our ambitious waste strategy".

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