Hope and Cursiter to remain open for recycling while review takes place

A detailed review of future options for the Council’s Household Waste and Recycling Centres at St Margarets Hope and Cursiter will now take place.

The two sites will continue to operate as recycling centres while that review is underway.

This follows the Development and Infrastructure Committee deferring a decision on recommendations to cease operating the facilities as sites accepting waste as well as recycling.

A report to today’s (30 March 2021) Development and Infrastructure Committee had outlined a pressing need to make a determination on the future of the sites, which need to be staffed if they are to meet SEPA licensing conditions for sites which accept household ‘black bag’ waste.

However, officers confirmed that the sites could continue to operate as recycling points while a review took place, without breaching SEPA licensing conditions.

Both sites were closed at the start of the pandemic in March last year, reopening later in the year accepting recycling only. Officers and members praised the patience, cooperation and input of local communities in helping to bring about the re-opening as recycling centres last year.

The report’s recommendation was that the sites cease to be operated as Household Waste and Recycling Centres – sites which can accept waste as well as recycling - due to the costs of equipping them with staff facilities and the ongoing costs of employing staff to operate the sites to SEPA’s licensing requirements.

The recommendations failed to get support from elected members. Instead, a new motion was put forward by East Mainland, South Ronaldsay and Burray ward councillor, Steve Sankey, that consideration of the proposed closure of the Cursiter and St Margaret’s Hope HWRCs in order to comply with SEPA licence conditions be deferred to enable the Executive Director of Development and Infrastructure to submit a detailed report to the Development and Infrastructure Committee, no later than October 2021, to include alternative, compliant options such as the continued operation of both sites as recycling centres only.

The committee also agreed to include in the motion that the sites continue to be operated meantime as recycling centres.

A report on the options for each site will come forward to the Committee in due course.

Meantime, visitors to the Hope and Cursiter HWRCs are urged to continue to observe the waste ban in place and to put recycling in correct skips, to ensure recycling can be reprocessed.