A cut in opening hours at West Lothian recycling centres could be in place from September.
An online booking system is also being proposed for all vehicles entering the centres – similar to the system currently used for vans and trailers.
The final decision will be made by Council Executive on Tuesday.
The report being presented on sets out current usage data, which highlights that the majority of visits to CRCs currently take place between 10am and 5pm. The proposed change would ensure that at least two sites are open between these hours each day.
Data highlights that 85 per cent of all visits to West Lothian’s CRCs are made at three sites; Oakbank, Whitburn and Blackburn. This has influenced the recommendation to keep these CRCs open more days than the sites at Linlithgow and Broxburn which are least used and only account for 15% of visits between them.
Saturday and Sunday are the busiest days for the CRCs with mid-week (Wednesday and Thursday) being less popular – it is therefore proposed that all CRCs will continue to be open at weekends.
The economic climate over the next few years will continue to be extremely challenging and the council has significant and sustained budget pressures caused by increasing costs and insufficient levels of Scottish Government grant funding.
The Scottish Government provides the council with 80 per cent of its budget our grant is expected to be less than required for the council to deliver essential local services. This results in a budget gap. The council is legally required to balance its budget - therefore the council has to reduce spending and change some local services.
A number of budget saving measures were approved in February which will allow the council to balance its budget.
One of budget saving measures already approved is to revise opening hours at Community Recycling Centres.
Should the Council Executive agree with the officer recommendation and approve this option all CRCs in West Lothian will remain open and West Lothian will continue to have a large number of CRCs compared to other local authority areas (per head of population and size).
Executive councillor for the Environment and Sustainability Tom Conn said: “By reducing opening hours we are able to ensure that our limited budget is used to keep all five CRCs in West Lothian open, and we do not have to consider other possible options, such as the closure of any sites. West Lothian will continue to have more CRCs than other local councils, especially when you compare us against councils of a similar size and population.”
He added: “West Lothian will continue to have a significant number of CRCs compared to other areas – especially given our size.
“In Falkirk, for example, a similar council to West Lothian in terms of population size, there are two CRCs and this has been the case for some time. Both are also open part time and both have moved to an online booking system. I believe this highlights that this isn’t a decision that West Lothian faces alone. All councils face extremely tough decisions in order that we can balance our budgets. We simply cannot continue to deliver the same level of service with the levels of funding available to us.
“It is not the case that councils want to cut any of our services; we have to work with the budgets we have and unless there is more funding, we are forced to make extremely tough decisions.”
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