Opening hours cut further at Wolverhampton rubbish tips

Rubbish tips in Wolverhampton are having their opening hours slashed yet again.

The Lanesfield and Bushbury sites are already operating at reduced hours and closed two days a week due to massive budget cuts.

And, from November 1, they will only be open between 10am and 4pm, when most people are at work.

At the moment, the tips are open 10am to 6pm on weekdays and 8am until 4.30pm on weekends. The Lanesfield site, in Anchor Lane, is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Bushbury, in Shaw Road, shut on Thursdays and Fridays.

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The council, which has to make £123 million of savings, said it will return to the 10am-6pm opening hours in the spring but for now, two-hour daily cuts were needed.

Council spokesman Tim Clark said: "Unfortunately we are being forced to make decisions like this to be able to cope with Government cuts.

"We are closing our two household waste and recycling sites earlier over the winter months, but there will still be a tip open seven days a week and both sites are open on Saturday, Sunday and Monday."

The two-day-a-week closures and continuous winter opening hours were part of changes to opening hours made earlier this year.

Mr Clark added: "Those hours have been in place from last winter, there was no winter/summer differential. Now, over the winter period we have to reduce them further."

The council is still finalising how much money these cuts will actually save.

In March, the council scrapped 31 recycling bins outside pubs, supermarkets, shops and other premises in the city.

Bosses said the move would help save £110,000, and the recycling bins, many of which had been in place since the 1990s, were underused and had become 'redundant' thanks to kerbside recycling.

Mr Clark said households will receive a calendar over the next few days with information about the new opening hours, as well as collection dates for their household bins for the year ahead.

Information on recycling centre hours is available at www.wolverhampton.gov.uk