Surrey Waste Management Consults Residents on Community Recycling Centre Improvements at Witley

Surrey Waste Management staged an exhibition last week to present its proposals to local residents for major improvements to the Witley Community Recycling Centre (CRC).

The exhibition at the Witley Centre met with overwhelming support from visitors for the long-awaited improvements to the local community recycling centre.  Among the proposals, traffic and noise featured prominently in response to long-standing local concerns. 

Sean Trotter, general manager at Surrey Waste Management, said:

“We shall be submitting a planning application to Surrey County Council Planning Authority later this month.  The new site will provide local residents with a modern, accessible and user-friendly facility designed to help residents recycle much more of their waste.   Our proposals include increasing and extending the current site, providing a new and safer road access off Rake Lane and installing acoustic barriers around the site.  The feedback from visitors to the exhibition is being assessed and we will be taking into account their comments about visual impact and noise before we proceed to submitting the planning application.”

The current recycling centre is located in a small area of land just off the busy A283 Petworth Road.  The compact size of the site means that the centre has to close when the bins containing the recyclable materials are changed over.  In the past, this has resulted in traffic queues along the Petworth Road and inconvenience to the residents.

Proposals will also include:

• creation of split-level container bays which will enable easy access to the recycling containers, eliminating the need for steps
• smaller recyclables will remain at ground level to ensure accessibility
• additional parking spaces and an improved  on site traffic flow system
• widening the existing single track Rake Lane to provide two-way traffic movement
• traffic calming measures near Rodborough Technology College to manage vehicle speeds and promote highway safety
• provision of a safe crossing and improvement to the existing pedestrian footpath
• acoustic screens along the access road and the raised area to the south, west and north boundaries of the new site

The proposed redevelopment of Witley CRC is part of Surrey County Council’s multimillion pound investment in all of the county’s CRC facilities.  Surrey County Council intends to retain its status as one of the top performing counties in the country for recycling and is aiming to reach 60% recycling at Witley and all the other community recycling centres.

The county-wide redevelopment programme for CRC’s also forms an important part of Surrey Waste Management’s commitment to work with residents to improve recycling rates across the county.  As a part of this commitment to recycling, Surrey County Council and Surrey Waste Management are delivering education programmes throughout the county to highlight the benefits of effective recycling.