MAJOR cuts to the opening hours of household recycling centres would not happen in an ideal world, says the Wiltshire councillor in charge of waste, Jerry Wickham.

Each of the 11 recycling centres, which are managed by Hills Waste Solutions, will close for two days a week from June to save £300,000.

The closure days will staggered to ensure that there will always be one recycling centre open in Wiltshire's four regions, north, south, east and west, each day of the week.

Coun Wickham said that difficult choices had to be made and detailed examination of usage had been carried out to minimise the effect on the public.

He said: “In an ideal world we would have them the way they are but some difficult choices have to be made.

“The fact is we have gone through very carefully with Hills Waste Solutions to find when things are busy and, on a Wednesday or Thursday in some parts of the county, we can show we have fewer people using the facilities.

“What we have done, in conjunction with Hills Waste Solutions, is looked at the usage and clearly Saturday, Sunday and Monday are very popular times so there’s no intention to change those at all."

Wiltshire Council has also confirmed that opening hours will be cut. Centres will only open from 10am to 4pm all year around as opposed to the current 9am to 4pm winter and 9am to 5pm opening hours.

Mr Wickham said that tough decisions had to be made as the council makes £30m worth of savings in their budget.

He said: “As part of the £30m we identified some savings could be made by decreasing the hours of some household recycling centres.

“It’s really been done to balance the books. We have to save money and we hope to save £0.3m as a consequence, I hope and believe this change should not materially affect the public to any great effect.

“What we were always going to do is to make sure in the four geographical areas, north, south east and west, there will always be one recycling centre open."

Asked about a potential increase in fly tipping, Mr Wickham said the majority of the worse cases are not household-related.

He said: “We all know on the lanes we find large amounts of green waste but we have not talking about domestic we are talking about unscrupulous individuals.”

As a result of the changes, Hills Waste Solutions has commenced a period of consultation with 31 employees who could be affected.

Mike Webster, group director Hills Waste Solutions, said: “Where possible, affected HRC employees will be offered additional work within the company to minimise the impact the changes may have on them and recruitment for HRC vacancies will be suspended to allow for the redeployment of existing HRC employees.”