WEST Cheshire’s household waste recycling centres are being modernised to make them more efficient and in line with the future needs of the council and its residents.

So says Cheshire West and Chester Council, which has sent out a leaflet to all households outlining changes starting next month.

The council said following consultation with residents there would be new opening hours to ensure sites were open when most needed while operating as cost-effectively as possible.

Northwich will be open five days a week, and Winsford seven days a week. All sites will open at weekends.

To counter potential fly-tipping a new monitoring system will be introduced in addition to work with enforcement staff, to make it easier to identify and prosecute offenders.

A re-use shop will be introduced at Winsford, which will sell items including bric-a-brac, small electricals and furniture (all safety tested), to increase the amount of waste re-used.

All sites will have new signs, layout changes and improved road markings.

Graham Pink, Director of Commissioning Places and Commercial Management, said: “Faced with difficult choices resulting from the need to make savings, the council’s ‘Let’s Talk’ consultation last year highlighted a desire from residents to make further savings from the waste management service to help protect other service areas from cuts.

“After considering a number of options, we chose to reduce the opening days and hours of some sites so we are able to keep all our existing sites open and enabling us to invest in the new Chester facility.

“This will allow us to achieve significant savings while maintaining the number of sites across the borough to ensure people are not disadvantaged through the closure of local facilities.”

A new reasonable usage scheme will replace the current waste permit scheme, to ensure sites are only used by residents who fund them.

Automatic number plate recognition technology will monitor vehicles entering every site. Frequent users, and those suspected of attempting to deposit non-household waste will be required to confirm where the waste has come from.