Northumberland County Council has refused to back down over plans to reduce the opening hours at a household waste disposal centre.
The rubbish tip in Prudhoe is set to be closed on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from next month as part of cost-cutting measures agreed in the council's budget.
The authority has said the changes will save £30,000 a year, but local councillors are concerned the closure will see residents dump their rubbish wherever they can if they cannot access the site's facilities.
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Coun Angie Scott, Labour councillor for Prudhoe North, has previously warned the changes will lead to "huge queues" and an increase in fly-tipping.
Meanwhile newly elected Prudhoe town councillor Paddy O'Kelly, has championed a petition signed by more than 1,100 people calling on the council to reverse the decision. At Thursday's meeting of the county council's petitions committee, he urged members to rethink the decision.
The Labour councillor said: "Northumberland already has the second-highest incidents of fly-tipping in the North East. People shouldn't fly-tip, but we need to give them less excuses, not more.
"Almost all of the waste fly-tipped in our area could be taken to the tip. The nearest tip is Hexham - a 26 mile round-trip.
"People mentioned this a lot when I was campaigning. Much of the anger is around the fact that people feel the decision was taken remotely."
Coun O'Kelly was questioned on the number of people who had signed the petition who lived locally. He said that just over 700 people who had signed were residents of Northumberland.
Coun John Riddle, Conservative cabinet member for local services at the county council, admitted that there had been an increase in fly-tipping when similar moves had been made at other sites in the past. However, he argued that these issues were resolved quickly.
Coun Riddle said: "When this happened in 2016, there were some initial problems that were short-lived. People get to know and they recognise what days they need to go.
"We didn't close any sites - we could've done that, that was an option. It was clearly stated in the budget's schedule of efficiencies and it went through the local area councils.
"Fly-tipping in Tynedale is very low. It has been reducing across Northumberland, we do have some hotspots but they're Blyth and Ashington. Tynedale remains very low.
"We have advertised it as well as we can. It's very, very simple - people will soon get used to it and they will appreciate that the tip is open and there are people to handle and help.
But Labour's Coun Caroline Ball agreed with fears that there would be more fly-tipping.
She argued: "There will be an increase in fly-tipping. People aren't going to want to wait in bigger queues, particularly on hot summers days.
"If there are people working on the site on the days it is closed, what's the point of closing the doors?"
Despite Coun Ball's protests, the committee agreed to move forward with the reduction in opening hours by four votes to two, with one abstention.
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