Independent councillor Ian Borthwick has called for a full review of recycling facilities in Dundee and for the people in the north of the city not to be ignored.
He was speaking in the aftermath of the SNP administration’s dramatic U-turn on Thursday to lift restrictions on refuse at Baldovie and Riverside recycling sites.
The move came after The Courier highlighted the concerns of local people.
People complained loudly about having to drive up to 15 miles across town to dump garden or household waste because their local sites wouldn’t accept the materials.
This caused inconvenience and also impacted on the environment, with Friends of the Earth Tayside calculating Dundee motorists as a whole would drive more than a million extra miles a year to get rid of their household waste.
It will take a few weeks to fully reopen Baldovie and Riverside but environment convener Craig Melville stressed that Marchbanks waste recycling centre serving the north of the city will remain closed.
The restrictions were saving the cash-strapped council £85,000 a year and these savings will now have to be found elsewhere.
Prior to the environment convener’s announcement on Thursday, Councillor Borthwick, a veteran voice on the political scene, warned that the policy could cost the administration at the ballot box.
Yesterday he considered his warning had been heeded and that the administration had “taken fright.”
He continued: “The decision to vary the policy, while belated, is welcome. However, there has to be a review of the situation at Marchbanks.
“I am pleased that the deep concerns of people in the west and in Broughty Ferry are being addressed but it seems to me that the people in the north and central area of the city are being neglected and ignored.”
People in places like Downfield still face lengthy journeys to Baldovie or Riverside to dispose of bulky waste because the Marchbanks site in Harefield Road is closed.
He continued: “It doesn’t seem to me to be unreasonable for the administration to have a full review of waste recycling in Dundee, including Marchbanks, as the claims of people in the north of the city are just as valid as those in the west and east.”
FoE co-ordinator Andrew Llanwarne said: “We’re pleased to see that they are prepared to change a policy which clearly is not working and is highly unpopular.
“This will make life easier for a lot of people who will soon only have to visit one recycling centre with their waste.
“Unfortunately this still leaves the communities around Marchbanks without a local recycling centre, and the council’s figures showed that this used to receive the biggest volume of waste out of the three.
“There is a real opportunity to establish a community reuse and recycling centre there, focusing on ‘waste’ items that can be repaired, refurbished and sold.”
There are examples of this elsewhere in the UK which are profitable, and he said they are helpful for people who have difficulty meeting the cost of household equipment and furniture.
“We would be pleased to work with the council and community groups on a feasibility study to look into different options and their viability,” he added.