Walsall super tip plans to be decided within the next three months

Walsall Council has formally submitted planning applications which it hopes will bring an end to motorists having to wait outside tips and enable more recycling to be completed each year.

Under the schemes, a huge new household waste recycling centre (HWRC) will be built on the former McKechnie Brass factory site in Middlemore Lane while the waste transfer station at Fryers Road, Bloxwich, will be moved on to the site.

It will also house a ‘reuse and upcycling shop’, selling refreshed household furniture and goods and a trade waste facility for small local businesses.

The existing fire-damaged HWRC at Fryers Road in Bloxwich will be demolished and a new, larger facility built on the site.

Once the new developments are complete, the existing Aldridge tip on Merchants Way will be closed.

Planners are considering the proposals and are expected to make a decision on them by April 27.

In the application, agents Wardell Armstrong LLP said both Merchants Way and Fryers Road HWRCs can take a combined 25,000 tonnes per year. The waste transfer station can take 95,000 tonnes a year.

Once built, the Middlemore Lane facility alone will be able to accept 40,000 tonnes a year while the waste transfer station will have a capacity for 125,000 tonnes per year.

The new Fryers Road tip will be able to take 25,000 tonnes of waste per year.

Walsall Council unveiled its plans last September and said: “Our existing facilities are outdated and inadequate.

“Queues at both sites often spill onto surrounding roads, affecting local businesses and other road users. We can’t recycle or reuse as much as we want to due to lack of space for skips.

“The WTS (where our ‘bin lorries’ take the rubbish they collect) was damaged by fire in 2017. Construction requirements have changed since it was built, and it now falls short of current standards.”

A consultation exercise was undertaken to get the view of the public. In Aldridge people raised concerns about impact of traffic, particularly around the Middlemore Lane and Leighswood Road junction.

But Wardell Armstrong said a transport assessment demonstrated there would be no severe impact on the roads will council HGVs will be routed via the Middlemore Lane/Dumblederry Lane junction.

In Bloxwich, people were worried about Fryers Road being closed for nine months but they were reassured the Middlemore Lane facility will be completed first and open to them.

Wardell Armstrong said: “The proposals form part of a wider strategy to modernise and enhance the provision of waste management services within Walsall and are integral to delivering the wider objectives in meeting the current and future demand within the authority.

“The proposals will assist in meeting local and national objectives associated with the waste hierarchy by reducing landfill waste and increasing the amount of recycling rates.”