Second former Suffolk County Council waste site closes. Portfolio holder blames local people

Cllr Lisa Chambers, Waste Portfolio Holder

Back in February the first waste site to be "divested" by Suffolk County Council at Bramford was forced to close due to a lack of demand. Now a second site at Chelmondiston is also to close its doors from 8 May as operator Collins Skip Hire says it was not viable. Their Managing Director is quoted by the BBC as saying:

People started to explore their own habits and ideas, and there are still free sites available, so they had options. If you don't need to pay and can find a way around it, you won't pay.

I am not sure why this is such a surprise. The County Council sites he says are "free" are of course not free but funded by people from their Council Tax so in fact what people are being asked to do is pay twice and unsurprisingly that is not popular.

But County Council Portfolio Holder Lisa Chambers seems to see the blame lying with local communities:

The community sites came from the public meetings that we held when we announced the closures. 

People said at public meetings 'we're prepared to pay, we want to keep our site open', but when it comes down to it they've actually decided to do different things with their waste.

So nothing to do with the County Council then. To me this shows what is objectionable about this divestment strategy. It allows the County Council to divest themselves of responsibility for the withdrawal of services and blame people for not wanting to pay twice!