Central Bedfordshire Dumps Drive Up – Cause for Concern
From Wednesday 26th March booking is required at 4 Central Bedfordshire Tidy Tips.
People visiting Central Bedfordshire’s Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs,) will need to use a new online booking system. The system is designed, they say, to make trips quicker, easier and more efficient.
The booking system comes into effect on Wednesday 26 March 2025, meaning residents will need to book a 20-minute time slot at any of the four recycling centres in Ampthill, Biggleswade, Leighton Buzzard and Thorn Turn, Houghton Regis. The new system has been offered up as a way to reduce queues, improve traffic flow, and ensure centres are used exclusively by Central Bedfordshire residents.
However local residents are not convinced that this is truly a “benefit” as proposed. Concerns have been expressed around:-
- an even greater occurrence of fly-tipping which had already increased in recent years since the introduction of online waste licences.
- Exclusion/discrimination of people who already struggle with online and digital services
- Unlikely to decrease not increase recycling and reuse.
- An exercise to later cut jobs after proof of use times
- An exercise to later restrict the number of visits of people who register
- Queues are only at peak times and caused mostly by the insistence to check ID’s
Additionally others have also argued that surely it is greener to use a tidy tip that is closest to home not driving miles to dispose of home waste. An example being the residents of Edlesborough. This Buckinghamshire villages nearest tip is Thorne Turn or Leighton Buzzard but the are required to drive a 20 mile round trip to Aston Clinton.
Social media comments have pointed out that Central Bedfordshire first closed, then introduced a booking system during Covid and that there was a long delay before the system was dropped. During this time Buckinghamshire tidy tips operated as usual except with social distancing.
Find Out More
The new system begins Wednesday 26th April and will be available here for booking no preview of the booking system is available and long queues have been reported at the time of publishing as people scramble to avoid the new system.
