Changes to household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) in Cheshire East came into effect on Monday 5 August 2024:
These changes have been introduced to ensure essential savings are made in 2024/25.
We anticipate the changes will take effect from the beginning of September 2025 once a new contract for the provision of HWRCs is in place. The emergency arrangements for HWRCs that are currently in place will continue until then.
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In February, the council agreed a budget for 2024/25 which will protect vital services and focus council funds on providing support where it will make the most difference.
As part of the essential savings measures for 2024/25, and due to increasing operating costs, the emergency closure of some household waste recycling centres ( HWRCs ) in the borough was agreed.
A number of mitigation measures – a booking system, later weekday opening hours for summer months, and a mobile HWRC – went live at the same time as the emergency closures to limit the impact of the closures.
Setting the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) and agreeing our budget for 2024/25 was extremely challenging, and we are still forecasting a four-year funding gap of £100m to balance our budget and ensure we hold an appropriate level of reserves.
This is because of factors including the ongoing impact of the cost-of-living crisis and inflation on council finances, as well as increased demand and costs for adult social care and children’s services, especially special educational needs that have not been met by increased funding.
Forecasting for this year already shows that the financial pressure is rising further. We must continue to make extremely difficult decisions about how key services in the borough are delivered, including about the household waste recycling centre service.
We have introduced a booking system for visiting our HWRCs at peak times - weekends and bank holidays.
If you need to visit Alsager, Crewe, Macclesfield or Knutsford HWRCs during these times you will need to book a slot online before you arrive.
This is so that queues and people’s waiting times can be managed. There will be no limit to the number of times you can visit.
Book a slot for a weekend or bank holiday
You will not need to book if you visit during the week.
Crewe, Macclesfield, Alsager and Knutsford HWRCs will be open for an extra hour each weekday until the end of September to allow more people to visit during the evenings.
This means that these sites will be open until 6pm each weekday up to and including 30 September.
If you visit these sites during the week, you will not need to book a slot before you arrive. However, a booking system for visiting these sites during weekends and bank holidays is in place.
If you live in the Bollington, Poynton and Middlewich areas, a mobile household waste recycling service is available to you. You can also visit any of the other HWRCs in Cheshire East.
Find out more about the mobile HWRC.
We encourage people to reduce and reuse their waste and unwanted goods, and to use their silver bin to recycle as much as their waste as possible.
If you have items you need to dispose of, there are a number of other places locally that you can take your waste and recycling.
It is a statutory requirement that councils provide the public with reasonable access to household waste recycling centres. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) provides national guidelines for local authority management of HWRCs .
WRAP guidelines suggest that the maximum driving times to a HWRC for the great majority of residents should be 20 minutes in urban areas and 30 minutes in rural areas.
It is not possible for us to provide individual HWRCs in all 14 of our towns or large villages – the cost would be too prohibitive, and this level of provision is not required by law.
We closely monitor fly-tipping as part of information passed to central government, published though the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
Importantly, fly-tipping is a crime and an offence under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Conviction could lead to a heavy fine. You can report fly-tipping though our street cleansing, litter and flytipping page.
The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) provides national guidelines for local authority management of HWRCs .
WRAP guidelines suggest that the maximum driving times to a household waste recycling centre for the great majority of residents should be 20 minutes in urban areas and 30 minutes in rural areas.
Legally, local councils cannot charge for statutory services, which means that we cannot charge people to access HWRCs . Therefore, it is not an option we can consider when looking at any future proposals for the longer-term provision of HWRC services.
On 26 September, the environment and communities committee approved recommendations for how household waste recycling centres will be provided in the future.
The changes are anticipated to take effect from the beginning of September 2025 once a new contract for the provision of HWRCs is in place. Read more about the changes from September 2025.
The emergency arrangements for HWRCs that are currently in place will continue until then.