Extra weekend slots soon available at Stourbridge tip
Extra weekend slots will soon be available at a household waste recycling centre in Dudley to help meet demand at peak times.
Dudley Council is proposing to add an extra 50 appointments on Saturdays and Sundays at the Stourbridge facility.
A total of 750 appointments would be available each day in future.
As part of the plan, the council is also proposing to change the extended summer weekday opening hours, currently 8am-6pm Monday to Friday, introduced in April this year.
The proposed new opening times would be Monday 8am-6pm and Tuesday to Friday from 8am-4pm. This follows data showing the facility runs at less than 40 per cent capacity in the last two hours on weekdays.
Weekend opening times remain the same at 8am-4pm.
Councillor Shaz Saleem, cabinet member for highways and public realm, said: "This is about meeting the demands of the busy weekend periods and making the best use of the facility.
"Since we increased the weekday opening by two hours a day, we have seen less than 40 per cent of slots being booked in these times, which is costing the authority money.
"By reducing the weekday opening hours we can move capacity to the weekend and accommodate more people at a time when they are more likely to need to access the tip.
"Stats tell us there simply isn’t enough demand to maintain and justify the cost of the extended opening hours during the week.
"We plan to revert back to the usual opening hours, but we are looking to move the late night opening to a Monday instead of Thursday.
"I would also like to remind people that appointments can be booked online but also cancelled online.
"Please cancel appointments if you need to as we’ve seen thousands of people fail to turn up and appointments wasted."
People can book a slot online or by calling Dudley Council Plus.
