Residents’ pre-registration scheme to be introduced at Sort It sites

People living in South Gloucestershire will soon need to pre-register details of their residency and motor vehicles in order to use local authority Sort It waste disposal and recycling centres, such as the one in Station Road, Little Stoke.

Each resident will be able to register up to two vehicles per address, either online, over the phone or in person at one of the council’s One Stop Shops.

On entry to a Sort It site, vehicle registrations will be checked using automatic number plate registration (ANPR) technology and non-registered users will be asked to leave.

The cost-saving measure, which is intended to prevent people living outside South Gloucestershire using the sites, will be introduced from 1st April 2016, with residents being given at least a three month period to register prior to implementation of the checks.

The scheme is one of a number of options put out for public consultation last year and subsequently agreed by South Gloucestershire Council’s Communities Committee at its recent meeting on 22nd July.

The committee also voted to reduce opening hours at all Sort It sites by opening half-an-hour later (at 8.30am) and closing at 4.30pm all year round, i.e. abandoning the current later summer closing time of 6.30pm, with effect from 1st October 2015.

One positive change to come out of the review is that the Little Stoke site will once again open on Wednesdays, with effect from 1st April 2016, in order to “manage new housing growth in the area prior to a new facility coming online in 2019/20”.

Other measures agreed by the committee include clarifying the definition of a van to include any vehicle with no side facing rear windows, no rear seats or an open back (or one which is separate to the cab), introducing a system of electronic permits for users of vans and limiting the number of times a van can visit to 12 times a year. Permit applications for vans registered to a business will be declined, although the council’s officers have been asked to develop a scheme to allow people who use either their sole trader vehicle, or a work vehicle they’re permitted to use personally, to transport household waste.

Current restrictions on the times that vans can visit Sort It sites will, however, be lifted.

Options to restrict (or charge) for the disposal of items classified as “non-household” such as plasterboard, hardcore and tyres, were not progressed due to negative feedback received through the public consultation, although it is noted that these types of items are, in any case, no longer accepted at the Little Stoke site as a result of changes recently introduced in an effort to improve safety.

It is expected that full details of all the agreed changes and new registration procedures will be made available later in the year.

Sort It sites have seen an increase in tonnages since 2012-13 with an 11 percent increase in 2013/14 to 35,009 tonnes and a further projected 5 percent increase in 2014/15 to nearly 37,000 tonnes. The increase in 2014/15 is in part due to an estimated 52 percent rise in the amount of garden waste deposited at the sites following the introduction of a charge for kerbside collection (dubbed the ‘green bin tax’).

Photo: Archive image of the Stoke Gifford (Little Stoke) Sort It Centre.

Related link: Report to South Gloucestershire Council’s Communities Committee meeting on 22nd July [MS Word]

More info: Changes to the Sort It Centres (SGC)

This article originally appeared in the August 2015 edition of the Bradley Stoke Journal news magazine, delivered FREE, EVERY MONTH, to 9,500 homes in Bradley Stoke, Little Stoke and Stoke Lodge. Phone 01454 300 400 to enquire about advertising or leaflet insertion.