Ards and North Down Council to look at pedestrian access at recycling centres
Ards and North Down Council is to look into pedestrian access to household recycling centres across the borough.
At the October meeting of the council’s Environment Committee, elected representatives agreed to a motion forwarded by the Alliance Party, to task council officers with producing a report outlining how pedestrian access to HRCs in the borough could be facilitated.
The motion states the report should “include consideration of health and safety requirements, the HRC booking system and the ability to provide pedestrian access as in other council areas in Northern Ireland”.
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Councillor Hannah Irwin, who forwarded the motion, told the chamber at Church Street, Newtownards: “Members will be aware this isn’t the first time that pedestrian access to our household recycling centres has been discussed in this council. It has been discussed relatively recently, and there were some barriers when it was discussed in confidence, with legal advice. The main barrier was health and safety.
“But the landscape of the discussion has changed between then and now, and two of the main reasons for that are one, the progress that has been made in other council areas, and two, the new booking system that was implemented here.”
She said: “Belfast City Council has already implemented pedestrian access to a number of their HRCs, I’m thinking of Alexandra Park in North Belfast and Ormeau. I have witnessed (at Alexandra Park) how they facilitate pedestrian access - essentially they have a separate entrance there, with a barricaded walkway along one edge of the site, and a zebra crossing which leads into the centre where the skips are.
“It is perfectly marked out and demarcated, and it is a relatively small site, I would compare it to some of our smaller HRCs. The size of our HRCs was previously mentioned as a barrier as to how you would facilitate that.”
She added: “I know the Director (of Environment) has had some conversation after we broached this idea, and has spoken to Belfast City Council about this, but I think it is worth getting that detail down on paper, to see exactly how Belfast was able to facilitate it. Because those officers would have the same health and safety concerns we would have had in the past.”
She said the borough’s new booking system, introduced last year, would help any new pedestrian access. She added: “I do believe there are potential benefits it could bring - in terms of the booking system and the health and safety aspect, people would have to give advance notice that they would be attending. Presumably it would be possible to add it to the system that they would be attending without a car.”
She said an option would be to introduce pedestrian-only access if special zoned pedestrian access could not be implemented,
She concluded: “It comes down to a fundamental issue - you should not need to own a car to access a service you pay for as a rate payer.”
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