Leicestershire County Council’s Loughborough and Somerby recycling and household waste sites will re-open this weekend – meaning that all 14 in the county are now open to the public.
Nine of the sites will be open five days a week – the same number of days as before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the service.
Two sites have increased to opening seven days (from five days a week before the pandemic) and the remaining sites will be open for 2-3 days each week during the ongoing pandemic.
The county council has been monitoring site usage, and the new opening times reflect demand across the sites.
Mountsorrel and Whetstone are the county’s busiest, and since reopening have had over 20,000 visitors to each site. Both sites have had an average of 250-300 visitors each day.
Visitors to sites need to book a slot in order to visit, so that social distancing can be observed, and restrictions on some waste types are still in place at some sites. Sites will continue to be open between 9am and 5pm.
Now that all 14 of our waste sites are opening again - we want to make sure that our waste site opening times reflect demand.
We’ve made sure that our biggest and busiest sites – Whetstone and Mountsorrel – are open seven days a week, and most other sites stay at a five-day week, as they were before coronavirus affected our service. We’ll keep these arrangements in place during the ongoing pandemic.
We’re also keeping the booking system in place as this has allowed us to maintain social distancing at the sites, which is extremely important while the spread of coronavirus remains a threat. It's also meant visitors avoid lengthy queues to access our sites
Person:Councillor Trevor Pendleton, county council cabinet member for waste disposalThe council is also reminding any residents that if they can’t make their time slot, or it is no longer needed, they should log in to their council account and cancel the appointment so that it can be used by someone else.
For more information about individual sites opening times, to book an appointment and for further details on recycling and waste in Leicestershire, visit www.leicestershire.gov.uk/waste or call 0116 305 0001.