Leicestershire: Three tips facing closure in cost-cutting plan

Three recycling centres in Leicestershire have been earmarked for closure under cost-cutting plans.

Council-run tips in Market Harborough, Shepshed and Somerby could be shut according to papers submitted to Leicestershire County Council.

If plans are approved in full, the sites could close in October 2024.

Cabinet member, Blake Pain, said in an "ideal world" the council would keep the sites open, but budget pressures meant the body needed to find savings.

Papers submitted to the council's cabinet said a 12-week consultation would run from November to January if plans were approved at a meeting next Tuesday.

The closures would save £270,000, with an additional £150,000 being retained by reducing summer opening times and the introduction of Christmas Eve closures at Leicestershire's remaining 11 tips.

Opening times at the Bottesford recycling site would also fall from five to three days.

The move is to make savings agreed in the council's Medium Term Financial Strategy 2023-27.

The council says it needs to save £90m by 2026 and is facing a £9m forecast overspend for this year's finances due to rising social care costs.

A full decision on the closures will not take place until 2024, once a consultation report is published.

Mr Pain, cabinet member for the environment and green agenda, said: "In an ideal world we'd perhaps like to keep them all open.

"But, given the financial pressures upon the authority and the fact that the department's been asked to identify savings, these three sites in particular already seem the most suitable to put forward based on a number of factors such as tonnages of waste deposited at these sites, visitor numbers at these sites.

"We've also invested quite heavily in the Kibworth waste and recycling site recently, which is only about five or six miles away from the Market Harborough site."

Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].