A new waste facility for Sevenoaks

Yesterday I was delighted to attend the formal opening of KCC’s new Waste Transfer Station (WTS) at Dunbrik in Sevenoaks. The KCC Chairman Bryan Sweetland declared it open.

Unlike a Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC - ‘the tip’), a WTS is not open to the public. It is where a waste collection authority, such as Sevenoaks District Council, will take the rubbish collected from the kerbside.

Here different forms of waste can be allocated for disposal, chiefly recycling. There are both HWRC and WTS facilities at Dunbrik. 

The existing WTS is both too small and not suitable for the increasing need to segregate materials for recycling. Work began on the new facility in July 2023 and it has been completed ahead of schedule.

The very impressive new WTS can process up to 75,000 tons of waste per year, which is double the amount put through the existing Dunbrik facility. It is another addition to our waste network, coming two years after we opened a modern and environmentally advanced HWRC at Allington near Maidstone. Our waste disposal record remains strong, with less than 1% going to landfill.

You can find the KCC media release about this here.

New Waste & Recycling Centre opens at Allington

KCC’s new Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) at Allington near Maidstone opens to the public today. This is the nineteenth HWRC in KCC’s network and is highly energy efficient and environmentally advanced. It is next to our existing Energy from Waste plant, which along with high recycling rates, ensures that only an irreducibly tiny amount of Kent’s waste goes to landfill. 

Susan Carey, Cabinet Member for Environment and I, along with KCC Chairman Lesley Game, a number of councillors and council officers, joined representatives of FCC Environment, our partners in developing and operating the Centre (as well as the neighbouring Energy from Waste centre) to visit and formally open the Allington HWRC. 

Allington is a valuable addition to waste disposal and recycling in Kent. You can find details of the Centre, and how to book an appointment, here.

A trip to the tip

Today (and last weekend, when I made my booking) I had the chance to be a mystery shopper of the Council's system for visiting Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) - in my case, my local HWRC in Swanley. All round, a very good experience; the recently introduced new booking system was quick and easy to use, and I booked in my session for today. I received several email reminders between then and now.

Today I visited and it was all very smooth; I went straight in, social distancing was easily observed and staff were (as always) friendly and helpful.

As Leader, I have been deeply involved with and have backed our approach of a managed reopening, using the booking system and gradually making its operation more flexible. The evidence I have seen, and in particular feedback from residents, has in general been very positive, But there's nothing like experiencing it yourself.    

Household Waste Recycling Centres: an improved system

The booking system that KCC introduced at our Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) when we reopened them in mid-May appears to have worked well in general. There was a poor start on the first day of operation for the system, but this was resolved quickly and the new system has certainly avoided the queues seen in a number of authorities who did not introduce booking when they reopened.

A new system comes into effect tomorrow that should offer further improvements. It will now be possible for each household to book two slots per month rather than the current one. Sites will be open seven days a week with longer hours, and in total 32,020 slots will be offered each month, rather than the current 22,960. The system should also offer greater flexibility; users will now choose their recycling centre first, then an available slot and only at the final stage have to enter vehicle and contact details. It will also be easier to cancel and amend bookings.

All told, this will hopefully offer a further improvement to residents while continuing to maintain social distancing and avoid traffic queues.

Fire at Dunbrik

A fire broke out yesterday morning at the Dunbrik waste site in Sundridge. The site combines a Waste Transfer Station (WTS), which among other roles receives waste from kerbside collections, with a Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) which will be used by many residents in the south of the Sevenoaks North and Darent Valley Division, along with many others.

Fortunately no one was injured in the fire, which I understand was identified at around 0415 yesterday morning. The WTS building has taken significant damage, the full scale of which is being assessed. The HWRC was not harmed, and will be reopened as soon as possible, though there will be some disruption as the rest of the site is cleared and investigated. The cause of the fire is not currently known.

The HWRC had just been reopened using the new booking system, along with all others across Kent. While it is closed those with bookings are being redirected to other local sites, such as Swanley and Pepperhill. This seems to have worked well yesterday. Similarly, the aim is to minimise the effect of the damage to the WTS on Sevenoaks District Council's kerbside collections.

Redevelopment of the site to make it a more efficient and sustainable facility was in any case under consideration, and this event may accelerate it.

Waste Centre booking system: better now?

As reported previously, the booking system for the reopening of Kent's Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) opened this morning in preparation for the managed reopening of the Centres themselves on Friday.

It proved a very difficult start. The booking system, which is hosted by Medway Council (with whom we have worked closely on the reopening plans) struggled to cope with demand in the hours after it opened at 11 am.  By 1.30 the web page had already had 99,178 views! Our Contact Point, which is able to make bookings had received 2,376 calls by the same time. Unacceptably, users experienced long waits and sometimes were moved back in the queue or even lost their slot after a long time on the system. 

It is not wholly clear what the underlying problem was; volumes were certainly high, but testing had been carried out under the assumption that they could or would be. Action was taken to stabilise and improve the system during the afternoon, and this appears to have improved matters. I have had feedback from others who, like myself, tried the system later in the day and were able to get into the booking form very quickly (in about three minutes in my case at around 7:30). Hopefully this improvement will be sustained tomorrow, when new slots will be released, and beyond, but we will of course be tracking this very carefully tomorrow morning and taking further action if needed.

Environment Cabinet Member Susan Carey will be visiting one of the sites tomorrow morning to see the preparations for Friday's opening, and will be talking about this on Radio Kent at around 11:30. 

The KCC website includes a reminder that trips should only be made if the waste cannot be stored safely at home, as well as the details of the rules and requirements for a visit to a Centre. 

Managed reopening of Household Waste Recycling Centres on 15 May

Kent County Council has announced that Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) will reopen on 15 May, with careful measures in place aimed at ensuring that the reopening is safe and orderly.

I indicated in my post last week that our overall direction was clear, and that we hoped to publish quickly both an opening date and details of how HWRCs will operate. That is what we have now done.

A new booking system for HWRCs has been developed by Medway Council, with whom KCC has worked closely on this plan. The system will be available to the public from next Wednesday, 13 May, and the sites themselves will be open from Friday 15 May. Residents will be able to book one of four daily slots, and numbers will be managed to ensure social distancing. Most of Kent's 18 HWRCs will be open seven days a week. Initially at least, residents will be able to book only one visit in a four-week period.

As councils had urged, there was a need for clarity in government guidance on HWRCs and on what constitutes a 'necessary journey'. In particular, DEFRA released its guidance yesterday, it's key provision being that:

"It would be reasonable for residents to undertake a journey to a HWRC if the waste or recycling could not be stored safely at home or disposed of through other legitimate routes such as a dedicated collection"

This guidance still therefore encourages a restrained approach to visiting HWRCs, although it does not require or expect either the police or HWRC staff to make a judgement as to whether or not waste being brought to a site meets these criteria. A measured approach by residents, along with the booking system, should help ensure that the reopening is orderly, does not cause traffic problems and protects the safety of both HWRC staff and residents using the service.

Further details will follow in the coming days before the reopening at the end of next week. 

KCC consultation on charging for non-household waste

KCC recently opened a consultation on charging for specific items - such as soil, rubble, hardcore and plasterboard ('non-household waste') - at its Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs - the rubbish dump to most of us).

The County Council is rightly proud of its comprehensive network of 18 HWRCs and a strong recycling record. Many councils are closing Centres, and many nearby authorities are charging already for the sort of items that KCC is now consulting on. This has the result that people from outside the County come to our sites to dispose of this sort of waste for free, in particular to those sites close to the border. Thus, to take the two HWRCs that my consituents are most likely to use, 17% of visitors to Dunbrik and 10% of those to Swanley do not live in Kent.

There is no statutory obligation on KCC to take non-household waste at its HWRCs, and the aim of the initiative is to continue to provide a service for a modest charge that can help sustain the HWRC network at a time of funding pressure.

The proposal certainly has its critics, and there is an often-expressed fear that this will increase the fly-tipping that is such a bane in areas such as Sevenoaks North and Darent Valley. However, experience has suggested that a lot of fly-tipping is the result of well-organised criminal operations, often dumping waste from London.

The consultation runs until 1 November.