Monday, 13 February, 2012

 Thanks to the efforts of your local Conservative Councillors, the Grange and Ambelside recycling centres will remain open. Your local Conservatives have heard your concerns and have ensured that these facilities remain operational. Opening times will be ammended in due course. Everyone realises that savings need to be made at County level, however the complete closure of our recycling centres has been taken off the table. There will be reductions in opening times, the exact details of which are yet to be announced. For further information watch this space and we will continue to inform you of events as they happen.

Both James Airey and Bill Wearing would like to thank Eddie Martin (Conservative leader of Cumbria County Council) for listening to their concerns and agreeing to work with them on this matter.

The text below is a press release on the issue.

 Local councillors are celebrating after receiving an assurance that HWRC (Household waste recycling centres) would be kept open. Tom Harvey, Grange Mayor and District Councillor for Grange said “This is fantastic news and a victory for common sense. I’m grateful that our Conservative County Councillor Bill Wearing has been able to persuade his colleagues to take into account the representations we have made through the consultation and that they agreed that sites like Guides Lot in Grange must be kept open. Savings do need to be made but there are facilities such as this which provide a real service to residents and must remain open. This is a great example of a Council consulting with residents and actually listening to what they have said and then acting on it. We’ve seen it far too often such as with consultations on toilet closures or car park charge increases where residents have been consulted with, using blatantly leading questions and then just ignored anyway, this certainly hasn’t been the case here”

Ben Berry, District Councillor for Windermere and Troutbeck, and who had been involved in leading a protest march at Ambleside HWRC said: “I’m just pleased that our campaign has been successful. This is a great example of all aspects of our community coming together as one voice and speaking up. A number of options were proposed during the consultation but instead of just saying no to closures we put forwards a good case for making efficiency savings whilst retaining the sites and that has been listened to. Moving forwards, I will be working with colleagues such as Tom and the County Council Councillors to ensure we have a service that delivers efficiencies both in terms of monetary savings but also in the way it can be accessed and used by our residents”