Cheshire East is changing its booking system for tips because the closure of three sites has resulted in long queues at others causing a “significant traffic hazard” on main roads.
The existing household waste recycling centre booking system operates at weekends only and was introduced in August 2024 as part of mitigations associated with “emergency” closures of the tips at Poynton, Bollington and Middlewich.
The council said the purpose of the weekend booking system was to manage the use of the four remaining tips – at Crewe, Macclesfield, Knutsford and Alsager – during busy times, which was historically weekends, (writes local democracy reporter Belinda Ryan).
But residents are now preferring to use the tips at the beginning of the week to avoid the booking system, and this has led to long queues, particularly at Macclesfield and Crewe, causing traffic dangers – something residents warned the council about as long ago as September 2024. Cheshire East has now acknowledged this.
The “Chronicle” has carried letters from people who have turned up without a booking at Alsager tip and been turned away, even though the tip was empty.
A report to this week’s meeting of the Environment and Communities Committee said: “The queues at the HWRCs during the early part of the week often transcend the site boundaries, meaning that residents are queuing on the public highway.
“This causes a significant road traffic hazard, especially at the Macclesfield site, where the entrance to the site is situated on the main public highway located on the brow of a hill, and at the Crewe site where the access road also serves a major industrial employment site.”
On Thursday the committee will be asked to give the go-ahead for alterations to be made to the booking system “to account for health and safety and traffic congestion issues at HWRCs”.
The council was warned of the dangers, particularly at Macclesfield, 16 months ago.
As reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service at the time, the same committee voted to close the tips at Poynton, Bollington and Middlewich permanently. Residents warned that Macclesfield tip was struggling to cope following the emergency closure of the three sites, plus Congletonians, forced to travel elsewhere after the council closed the tip in the town.
Poynton town councillor Laurence Clarke then told the meeting the closures had led to “more traffic on the roads, with big queues outside Macclesfield tip on Congleton Road”.
There were numerous reports on social media at the time of queues stretching as far back as the Flower Pot junction in Macclesfield.
