Residents who use Surrey County Council’s tips in Bagshot, Cranleigh, Dorking and Warlingham will soon only be able to take recycling to these sites.

The County Council’s ruling Cabinet has agreed to start charging for construction wood waste such as sheds, fencing panels and posts, decking and fitted kitchen units, and roofing felt.

However, it has now been revealed that due to a lack of payment points at some of the Community Recycling Centres, this will not be a facility enjoyed at all of Surrey’s tips – from Tuesday 7th May 2019, residents will no longer be able to take any wood waste or roofing felt to Bagshot, Caterham, Cranleigh, Dorking and Warlingham recycling centres. All other Community Receycling Centres will start accepting payments for these items on Monday 3rd June 2019.

The Lib Dems and I find this all very puzzling. Whilst I appreciate that four of the sites in question will now only be accepting recyclable waste, the refusal to take wood waste is not what I was expecting, and is news which comes completely out of the blue. I do not recall any mention of this in the recent consultation.

There is no time to prepare for this and I see this as a major erosion of service which will significantly increase the fly-tipping and make the other tips even busier.

If the Council is introducing charging, it needs to ensure that Community Recycling Centres have the facility to accept payments, even if that is only contactless payments.