May 2024

There has been much debate and concerns expressed by residents about the state of the recycling centre in the Mound car park.

The Council provides this service for residents that cannot recycle their waste via their weekly bin collections. But in recent months, usually at weekends, the carpark has been turned into a disaster area, due to illegal fly tipping and prohibited trade waste, mainly cardboard.

The problem got worse this year because a number of nearby Surrey and Greater London sites closed.

The Mound Recycling Centre on a bad day

Our councillors and members of the Residents Association have been regularly monitoring the site and reporting obvious trade users to the Council for potential prosecution.

We have also made a number of suggestions to improve the situation. The first two have already been actioned.

We suggested removing the lids from the cardboard containers because a number were still empty despite the area being piled high with waste. This has been done and seems to be working with the site able to accommodate more cardboard.

We also asked for improved signage to make users fully aware of the site’s purpose and warn perpetrators that they will be prosecuted. These have been installed.

The Mound on a good day after a clean-up

But unless wrongdoers are prosecuted, or at least feel the risk that they may be prosecuted, the problem is likely to continue. Illegal dumpers and businesses know this is an easy site to dump their waste. We have asked for covert or overt CCTV coverage to identify and catch offenders. This was used over the Christmas period and let to a number of prosecutions, but the Council are reluctant to introduce this as a permanent deterrent.

This is because the future of the site is under active review by Council officials and it may be that they decide to close the site altogether. The Council’s reasoning for not installing CCTV is apparently because they consider it too expensive to be justified for a possible relatively short period of time. The RA have asked them to consider cost effective modern technology  CCTV systems to cover the time period up to the date of closure, if closure is the course of action decided upon. However no response has been received. A decision is expected in the summer. Closure would be a shame for those genuine users, but they should be able to easily recycle their refuse using the normal weekly bin collections.

So, in conclusion, there have been some improvements. but the problem will continue for the time being. We are determined that action is taken and this eyesore resolved as soon as possible.