Following new Government guidelines published earlier this week we are opening all four of our household waste recycling centres on Monday (11 May). This is for essential visits only for waste that would cause a risk to health and safety to store at home.
The sites will accept the usual materials and will be open during the usual times of 9am – 5pm, 7 days a week for Central Bedfordshire residents only.
To help manage this, residents will be required to book a half-hour slot in advance to access the tidy tip. Residents can do this on the council website at https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/tidytips or by calling Customer Services on 0300 300 8302.
Timed slots are now available to book up to Sunday, 17 May. Further slots will be made available shortly and will be published on our website.
To protect residents and staff there will be limits on the number of vehicles allowed on site at any one time to allow for social distancing. This means there may be delays accessing the site and queues outside of the site.
Only cars, 4x4s small vans (e.g. Combo van) and cars with trailers will be permitted on site. (Usual restrictions on vehicles and trailer size apply). This is to ensure that unloading times are reduced as far as possible to allow the maximum number of visits per hour.
The sites will accept the usual materials, but this may be subject to change. Residents are advised to have a maximum of two adults per car and to only bring loads that they can comfortably manage to handle by themselves as the site staff are unable to offer any physical assistance.
We are asking our residents to support us in this approach; to keep waste at home unless it is a risk to health or safety and to be tolerant when queuing and using the sites. They should continue storing their items for disposal, recycling or reuse at a later date or to use our kerbside waste and recycling service where possible. In this way we will be able to keep the sites open for essential use and help the service run as smoothly as possible.
I would like to stress that we are still amid the Coronavirus crisis and that every time we leave our homes and encounter other people, we risk infection. This is why householders should only take waste to a household waste recycling centres if it cannot be stored safely at home and no alternative disposal options are available. If you could help to explain this message it would be most helpful.
Further information will be published on our website, so please direct any queries to https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/tidytips
in the first instance.