Southbourne resident faces ‘ludicrous’ trip to rubbish tip after entrance rules change

Andrew Lloyd, who has lived on the border between West Sussex and Hampshire for 19 years, always used to visit the rubbish tip in Havant, which is around five miles from his home and just half a mile from where he works as an IT consultant.

But new rules set to be imposed by Hampshire County Council mean he will now face a £5 charge for using this tip because he is classed as a non-resident.

The council said the introduction of a charge will allow non-residents to continue to use Hampshire sites, while ensuring that a contribution to cover the cost of disposal is received.

But Mr Lloyd, who technically lives in West Sussex, said he now will face a 15 mile round trip to the amenity tip in Coach Road, Westhampnett, instead.

The 46-year-old fears the environmental impact this will have and said it was ‘hardly conducive’ with aims to reduce carbon emissions, as outlined in the Climate Emergency Action Plan recently adopted by Chichester District Council.

“To make the whole round trip is ludicrous,” he said. “I dread to think what the carbon footprint of that is.

“I can’t see how that’s good for the environment, or for residents.

“I’ve talked to people in the village, they are really up in arms about it.”

Mr Lloyd, who said he probably visited the tip once every two months – and double that in the summer – particularly to drop off garden waste, said the whole journey was likely to take an hour or more.

“Getting into Chichester is hard at the best of times,” he said.

“The A27 is just notoriously gridlocked the whole way along.”

Mr Lloyd said he wants to the see the two councils come to an agreement and introduce cross charges.

A spokesman from West Sussex County Council said there was currently no agreement in place regarding cross border usage of the recycling sites between Hampshire and West Sussex.

“For those West Sussex residents living close to the Hampshire border, the entry fee [to a Hampshire site] may mitigate the extra mileage of travelling to a West Sussex site,” the spokesman said.

“The majority of West Sussex residents live within ten miles of a West Sussex recycling centre, including the Southbourne area.”

Earlier this year, the county council implemented a scheme to restrict the use of its Household Waste Recycling Sites to West Sussex residents only, in order to control the ‘significant’ amount of waste coming to its sites from people living outside of the county.

This is expected to save West Sussex taxpayers around £250,000 per year, the county council said.

A spokesman said: “We appreciate this may be inconvenient for some residents living close to the border and we have already come to a financial agreement with Surrey County Council to allow Surrey residents in the East Grinstead area to continue using the sites there.”

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