WILTSHIRE Council is consulting on the proposed closure of Everleigh Household Recycling Centre.

A typical conversation about this could go something like this:

Alfred: Have you heard, they want to close Everleigh, the place where you take rubbish for recycling?

Bert: Yes, but I’ve got used to taking mine to Marlborough where there are bins for all the different sorts of rubbish.

Alfred: It used to be like that at Everleigh and it is so much easier to get to, much nearer and not nearly so much traffic.

Bert: The traffic is a problem in Marlborough and Devizes. If I could recycle everything at Everleigh, I would go there. Do you know why they want to close it?

Alfred: Something to do with costs I believe. They say not enough people use it, but that was bound to happen when they shut down half of it. People did not like being told to put the stuff they had collected specially for recycling into the skip for household waste. Come to think of it, this might have added to the costs because sending waste to landfill costs £88 per tonne.

Bert: Seems mad to me. We are a country area and with all those new army houses in Tidworth and more going up in Ludgershall there will be more people who want to use the site. They cannot go to Andover now as that is for Hampshire residents.

Alfred: Sounds as though they are only looking at the short term and not the long term. I hear fly-tipping in the county cost more than £2.5m to clear up last year. There will only be more if Everleigh closes.

Bert: To keep Everleigh open they would have to spend some money on maintenance but a lot has been spent on other sites. The bins in Marlborough are new.

Alfred: It’s about time they gave Everleigh a facelift.

Bert: Sid was saying yesterday that there is a consultation going on and there’s something wrong with it.

Alfred: Well, they tried to shut Everleigh down two years ago, then they ran it down, so now I suppose they want to make sure of shutting it down this time.

Bert: That’s just it but there’s a lot of people don’t want it shut and it’s not so easy to take something away from people as it is not to give it to them in the first place. There’s lots of people that don’t want it taken away.

Alfred: It doesn’t seem fair to take it away. We pay our taxes just the same as those who live in the towns and a lot of people round here are very careful to do their recycling. They take huge car loads up there.

Bert: I heard Sid say that the council wants to close it, and they say in the consultation there aren’t any viable options for keeping it open.

Alfred: So does that mean they have decided to close it before asking any of us about it? Maybe that was what Sid was talking about when he said there was something wrong with it.

Bert: Could be. Best to write in and ensure it stays open then.

Alfred: Where do you write in to? I haven’t seen any notices about it.

Bert: No, its all silent these days. They just put a consultation up on the council website and expect you to know about it. Luckily they still inform the parish councils so that’s one way the word gets round.

Alfred: When it’s something that affects us all it doesn’t seem right that there aren’t any notices from the councils. There are a lot of families that find there is not enough room in the blue bins and have to take stuff up to Everleigh regularly. Where do you look on the web?

Bert: Go to https://surveys.wiltshire.gov.uk/snapwebhost/s.asp?k=151974372077

Alfred: What about the people who do not have internet?

Bert: There are usually paper copies in the library. The consultation ends on September 3. Best tell everyone to do it before they go on holiday.