Hornsey Street pedestrian drop-off area
Following a six-week consultation with residents, NLWA has today announced the Gateway Road Reuse and Recycling Centre (RRC) will close. The site’s last day of operation will be Sunday 3 November.
We are grateful to the community for participating in the consultation survey, which allowed us to fully understand how residents use the site currently, and what factors might impact their ability to use our other services. This will help us ensure all residents can continue to dispose of their waste easily.
As we advised at the launch of the consultation in July, as a publicly funded body NLWA must ensure we are always providing the best value for money for our councils and taxpayers. With a new reuse and recycling centre recently opened at the Edmonton EcoPark, a wider range of materials now accepted at other sites, and the operating costs of Gateway Road set to rise significantly, we do not feel we can reasonably justify the expense of keeping the site open.
Through advertising the consultation at the site, via council newsletters and on social media to tens of thousands of residents, we were able to gather a range of views and feedback. Residents shared with us what they felt the most significant impacts would be if the site closed, and we are confident we can meet their needs through our other services. The most prominent concern from residents was the inconvenience of needing to travel to another reuse and recycling centre. Waltham Forest is in the fortunate position that there will still be two recycling centres in the borough (currently there is only one other borough in greater London with more than this). South Access Road is less than two miles from Gateway Road and only a seven-minute drive. This is a highly suitable alternative for the 85% of survey respondents who stated they visit Gateway Road by car. We have also recently improved pedestrian and cycle access at South Access Road, and continue to improve access facilities at all sites.
Without Gateway Road north London still has eight reuse and recycling centres in total, which is more than any other region in London. This includes the new site at the Edmonton EcoPark, which was completed in July and is now fully operational and open to the public. All residents of north London can use any of these free of charge. With an ever-increasing range of materials collected at home (such as textiles or bulky items), recycling centre usage actually accounts for only 5% of recycling collected in north London.
In the coming weeks we will work closely with Waltham Forest and Hackney councils to ensure all residents are informed about the closure arrangements and alternative services they can use for waste disposal. This will include digital advertising, signage and information at the site itself, and information included in council newsletters and webpages.
In the lead-up to the site closure we expect Bywaters, the operator of the site, to work with their staff to provide them with alternative working arrangements. Bywaters have advised us they do not expect there to be any job losses amongst the small number of staff working at the site.
More information about closure arrangements and our decision can be found on our website.
