Coronavirus Northern Ireland: Local Councillor calls for reopening of Household Recycling Centres | Latest Newry News, Newry Sport and Newry Business for Newry City

Coronavirus Northern Ireland: Local Councillor calls for reopening of Household Recycling Centres

SDLP Group Leader Pete Byrne has called for the safe reopening of Household Recycling Centres across Newry, Mourne and Down following an increase in fly-tipping reports across the district.

 

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Speaking to Newry Times, Councillor Byrne said, “We are working to ensure our 10 Household Recycling Centres across Newry Mourne and Down District Council reopen in a safe manner.

 

 

“The closures affected all centres across the North due to a directive from the NI Executive as they were not included on the list of essential services.

“Currently skips at our centres cannot be emptied as the company we use are not operating as they are classed as a non-essential service.

“We recognise the urgency of calls to reopen due to the increase in reports of fly-tipping.

“In order to do this in a safe and sensible manner, we have called on the NI Executive to review its decision and recategorise HRC’s as essential services.”

He continued, “We are liaising with other party leaders and the Council’s senior management team and have asked for a paper ‪ on ways to reopen.

 

 

“We are also working with SDLP colleagues across the North and we are all of the opinion to push to get the service deemed as essential which will allow us to reopen safely and have skips emptied.

“We support a practical approach that will see our HRC’s open and available to the public, but we must ensure social distancing is in place and services are operating to empty skips as they fill up on our sites.

“While many will be using the current period as an opportunity to spring clean their home or do some gardening, we are reminding people that there is no excuse for fly-tipping.

 

 

The local Councillor added, “Not only is the removal of this waste costly to the ratepayer, it also takes focus away from delivering our core services at this very challenging time.”

 

Keep up to date with all the latest Northern Ireland Coronavirus / Covid-19 news HERE

 

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Posted by on Apr 20 2020. Filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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