Vale Street depot to close – sign our petition
Lambeth Council decision will increase fly tipping in our area
Lambeth Council has decided to close the Vale Street Waste Depot to general waste. It will in future take recycling only. This decision was made without any consultation with local residents. Conservative councillors in Gipsy Hill forced the Council to reconsider and won concessions, but the closure will still go ahead. Knights Hill’s Labour councillors did not even attend the meeting to speak on behalf of residents.
We discovered that of the 6,000 tons of household waste dumped at Vale Street, 4,800 tons is dumped by commercial users and non-Lambeth residents: groups that should not be using the site. If this waste could be managed elsewhere – in the borough it came from for example – the council could massively reduce traffic and noise, and yet still have a collection service for residents. Sadly, the council refused to consider this option: instead it is continuing with a policy that could lead to hundreds of tons of flytipping in this area.
A supervisor used to manage the movement of vehicles entering the site, but was withdrawn recently. We are not convinced that alternative options have been properly explored, including:
- Restoring the supervisor at the entrance to the site or introducing a licence system
- Restricting use of the facilities to Lambeth residents only. This is done for residents in other boroughs.
Vale Street will continue to provide recycling facilities and there are plans to improve the service. We support these particular plans, but they will not compensate for the loss of the general waste facility at Vale Street.
If you object to the closure of this local facility, please complete the e-form below. We will make the council aware of the strength of feeling on this issue, and keep you in touch with any developments.
the quantity of rubbish collected at the depot and where it comes from highlights the shortage of refuse collection points throughout London. i would image that the cost of collection fly tipped rubbish is fair greater than that of running the vale street depot.
Lambeth have highlighted that a large perecnetage of rubbish comes from other boroughs – why not get an agreement of financial assistants from neighbouring boroughs to help cover the costs of running the site.
We need long term plans not the usually short term act now think later approach from labour.
Please see my previous e mail to Councillor Clare Whelan setting out the reasons why I thought the Vale Street depot shoudl not become recycling only.
I am appalled at the short sighted nature of Lambeth’s proposals to close the Vale Street dump for general waste disposal.
The wider enviromental costs of increased fly tipping and the financial costs of repetetive rubbish clearence will far outweigh any curent costs of keeping the dump open.
The claim that closure is justified because non-residents are the majority users doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. How does anyone know? I have been using the dump regularly for numerous years and never once has anyone asked me whether I am a local resident or even if my rubbish is domestic or commercial. Restricting use to locals is easily manageable,. I for one would happily bring along my rates bill as proof of residency or even a simple permit scheme would do the trick. This is the first step to complete closure and then sale for re-development. I expect the £ signs are already flashing!
In my area of Lambeth we already have people fly tipping. Closing the depot will only make this worse. No one has ever asked when I have gone to the depot if I am a local resident so how do they know that the majority of people using the depot are non residents. I would quite happily take along proof of my address. A simple answer would be to restore the supervisor.