Banbridge District Council has announced plans to start work within the next few weeks on expanding its community recycling centre on the Scarva Road in Banbridge to approximately five times its current size.

The £1.7 million project, which is supported by an Environment and Heritage Service Waste Management Grant, is expected to be completed by spring 2008 and will result in a much improved recycling facility with a new one-way system layout, increased drop-off points for waste and a training room where local schoolchildren and community groups can be educated on important environmental issues. The expanded facility will also have a re-use shop where householders can bring and buy old, unused or unwanted household items.

David Lindsay, Director of Environmental Services with Banbridge District Council, commented: “Managing a large construction project such as this within a limited period will be a challenge. Therefore, we would appeal to all householders and businesses that use this site to be patient when work gets underway. The current site will have to be slightly reduced in size to accommodate works with the result the public may experience some inconvenience.”

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David continued: “We apologise in advance to householders and commercial users for any inconvenience caused during our works programme. However, our expanded community recycling centre will, in the long-term, be a much better facility capable of meeting the future needs of a growing population.”

Residents can still bring recyclable materials such as paper, card, engine oil, florescent tubes, car batteries, garden waste, wood and electrical items to the site during works. General waste will also be accepted but every effort must be made to ensure that no recyclable material should be mixed in with the general waste as this goes to landfill.

To avoid traffic congestion problems within the temporary scaled-down site, it is recommended that householders who use this Scarva Road site look at other options for dealing with their waste such as bringing materials to one of the many community recycling points located throughout the District or placing items in their kerbside box. It would also be most helpful if users could, where at all possible, avoid traditionally busy periods such as Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays, thereby helping to stagger demand.

(LC/JM)