Calderdale Council is considering options for its Household Waste Recycling Centres (tips) in the context of unprecedented financial challenges and needing to make significant cost savings.
At the next Cabinet meeting on Monday 13 January 2025, Councillors will discuss how to best make these savings in the waste and recycling service budget.
At Budget Council in February 2024, a proposal to close Elland tip was put on hold until the end of the year, when the impact of the new resident permit scheme on use of the site could be assessed.
The Council introduced the resident permit scheme in July 2024 to ensure all tips can only be used by people who live in Calderdale, meaning local Council Tax payers’ money is only used for the disposal of Calderdale’s waste.
This has resulted in lower usage of Elland tip due to people in neighbouring Kirklees not being able to use the facility.
The option to close Elland tip is now being put forward to Cabinet Members again, along with an alternative option to reduce the opening hours of all Calderdale tips from seven days a week to five, instead of closing Elland tip.
The choice of Elland as the site to potentially close from 1 September 2025 is because an estimated 50% of the catchment area is outside Calderdale, it is close to other tips in Brighouse, Sowerby Bridge and Halifax, and it is one of the least used tips in Calderdale.
The alternative option to reduce the opening hours at all Calderdale tips, from seven days a week to five from autumn 2025, would allow the Council to make bigger cost savings to meet budget pressures.
If applied, the two-day closures would be carefully planned to ensure there would always be a nearby tip that people could use, and would be based on the days that the Council knows are least busy at each site.
Cllr Danielle Durrans, Calderdale Council’s Cabinet Member for Public Services and Communities, said:
“We, like other councils across the country, are under immense pressure to make savings in our budget due to unprecedented financial challenges and increasing demand for our limited resources.
“We are known in Calderdale for being great at recycling, and we thank local people for continuing to play their part.
“Although it’s with regret that we have to either close Elland tip or reduce the opening hours of all our tips, with either of these options we would still be providing a Household Waste Recycling Centre service that far exceeds national guidance and that of other West Yorkshire councils in terms of residents having a nearby site.”
The options will be discussed at Calderdale Council’s Cabinet meeting on Monday 13 January at Halifax Town Hall from 4pm. The meeting will also be live streamed at https://calderdale.public-i.tv/core/portal/home(external link)