Greystones recycling centre- will it ever happen?

Mon 12 Dec 2011, 18:42

John,
you can easily report incidents of fly tipping at www.fixmystreet.com (sorry, have tried and failed to make that a hyperlink- you'll need to cut and paste it!)and the info will get passed on to the relevant council.

Mon 12 Dec 2011, 10:20

I strongly suspect that many fly tippers drive further in order to dump their consumer durables in some remote beauty spot than if they'd decided to take them to the nearest tip! Hell, they probably go past the tip on the way! Criminals are often not very bright...

Sat 10 Dec 2011, 11:25

We live at the top of Stonesfield Lane where it joins the Oxfordshire Way. About 4 metres from our gate and visible from our house have appeared three bags of rubbish and a television set. These would doubtless have gone to the tip, if we had one. Any suggestions?

Mon 5 Dec 2011, 17:50

This is last chance to lobby WODC officers prior to their Cabinet meeting on Weds. The Greystones item needs to be on their agenda and discussed. If we let them drift on their promised proposal now, it will be much harder to resurrect this later.

Thu 24 Nov 2011, 11:10

I've just received a message from Paul Cracknell at WODC which says that "I have been preparing the draft agenda for the next Cabinet meeting & there is no intention to submit a report on the Greystones site on the 7th"

Mon 21 Nov 2011, 15:19 (last edited on Mon 21 Nov 2011, 15:19)

I've been told that it is likely to be on the agenda on December 7th, but not yet confirmed. The agenda will be published on November 29th and you can check it here www.westoxon.gov.uk/council/meetings.cfm

Fri 18 Nov 2011, 09:19

Thank you Liz. I will add my voice that the Greystones site proposal is something we want to see progressed. Might also find out when the relevant WODC cabinet meeting is and go along...

Thu 17 Nov 2011, 09:16

Jenny, sorry to have taken a while to answer your question. The cabinet members for WODC are:

Mark Booty
David Harvey
Simon Hoare
Verena Hunt
Roy Langridge
Barry Norton
Warwick Robinson

They all have e mail addresses that work as follows: name.surname@westoxon.gov.uk. So Mark Booty is mark.booty@westoxon.gov.uk. If you want to write a letter rather than an e mail, all their addresses are listed on the West Oxfordshire website, or you can write to them at West Oxfordshire District Council, Woodgreen, Witney, OX28 1NB.

Tue 15 Nov 2011, 17:30

Oh help Jean, are they still overflowing ? I emailed Bob Lightfoot (the guy in charge) yesterday to say they were full to overflowing and he contacted me to say he'd get the contractors to clear them. It makes me VERY cross---I've been banging on about this for literally years and Trevor Askew (the guy even more in charge), partly because I made so much fuss, produced a report to say everything would be great---25% capacity in the bins and the area around left all neat and tidy. I did think it got better but things seem to be slipping again. Will try again !!!

Tue 15 Nov 2011, 16:40

from the OCC Website in answer to Why was dean tip closed.
Since the new kerbside recycling and waste collection services started in West Oxfordshire there have been fewer visits to the site. The new kerbside collection service has offered an increase in the number of materials collected at the kerbside including free green waste collections.
Dean Pit has operated on temporary planning permissions for a number of years and this could not be extended indefinitely.The original planning permission covered the life of the landfill, which was restored over ten years ago. The location of a HWRC at Dean Pit does not fit well with planning policy, which states that facilities should be provided closer to the main centres of population.
Is Stanton Harcourt nearer to a centre of population than Dean Pit was to Chipping Norton, Charlbury and the surrounding villages? I have just pruned all my climbing roses and clematis, far too much and dangerous for the waste bin and shredder so we will have to burn them. Previously I would have taken them to the tip.
The overflowing bins in the Spendlove car park today were a health hazard, and immediatly behind a food supermarket.

Tue 15 Nov 2011, 14:14

Contact details:-
Maria Grindley - District Auditor
Unit 5, Isis Business Centre, Horspath Road, Cowley OX4 2RD

Tue 15 Nov 2011, 11:14

Jon's suggestion of involving the district auditor is an excellent one.

Tue 15 Nov 2011, 10:31

Amongst other things I wrote to Barry Norton (WODC leader of the Council), Ian Hudspeth (WODC and OCC councillor) and David Harvey (WODC councillor in charger of Waste and recycling) all three of whom had told me v. firmly at the WODC council meeting that the 'upgrade' to Dean Pit would cost £1 million and be absolutely necessary. I said that neither of these statements were true and could we please have our pit back. The reply I got from Barry Norton was two lines---no apology---simply saying OCC had responsibility for DP and I should have known that and approach them if anyone---no response from the others.
I did know that but I feel they should have apologised and, given that the facts are wrong and the whole thing such a mess, they should have taken up the fight and lobbied OCC on our behalf. After all DP is in WODC's area. But no---of course----both authorities are Tory and they are sticking togther on this.

Tue 15 Nov 2011, 08:45 (last edited on Tue 15 Nov 2011, 08:47)

You'll find names of cabinet members, members of the committees, and councillors' phone numbers and email addresses as downloads from here.

Mon 14 Nov 2011, 23:05

Liz, Do you have a suggestion as to the most effective way to 'lobby the Cabinet'?

Mon 14 Nov 2011, 21:39

I suggest that a tonne of salt should be deposited on each of the councillors responsible for this Dean Pit shambles...

Mon 14 Nov 2011, 18:19 (last edited on Tue 15 Nov 2011, 08:36)

Glena, if you really want a verdict on this, I suggest you draw the attention of the district auditor to it. It may not change anything, but it might make politicians and public servants wary of working too closely together in future. And it might uncover the paper trail to the originator of the mistake (or deception, as the case may be).

Here's another idiocy. You will have read in Cllr Neil Owen's newsletter that the (his) county council is offering each parish/town council a tonne of salt for the winter. What he does not say is that they are not giving councils anywhere to store it or the means to distribute it. And the offer takes no account of size of population: thus Fawler and Charlbury each get a tonne.

Mon 14 Nov 2011, 16:54

I'm sure that Ian Hislop would be interested !!

Mon 14 Nov 2011, 16:19

The whole thing is crazy----so far we (Liz Leffman, Ann Harper and myself) have organised a petition with 2000 signatures, had four letters in the Oxford Times, established that the £1 million pound upgrade 'needed' at Dean Pit was not needed, that the Environment Agency would have supported it being given permanent planning permission, written to David Cameron with the truth---resulting in him contacting the OCC who told him that 'some' people had got muddled and applied the £1 million to Dean Pit when it actuually referred to Redbridge---'a genuine case of crossed wires' (are we meant to say 'oh dear, bless them, never mind '???) All without any apologies, sensible explanation (on second thoughts that's impossible because there isn't a sensible explanation) or a promise to unmuddle themselves and give us back Dean Pit---which is what we all really want. One couldn't make it up !!

Mon 14 Nov 2011, 11:08

Well done Liz.This is much appreciated.

Mon 14 Nov 2011, 09:19 (last edited on Mon 14 Nov 2011, 09:22)

Well, here's a turn-up...I e-mailed Keith Butler, the head of Democratic Services at WODC, to ask for a slot at the next council meeting so I could ask what was happening about Greystones. And guess what? A proposal for Greystones will be going to the WODC Cabinet at either the December or the January meeting. Strange that Cllr David Harvey, who is responsible for environment, didn't know this when I wrote to ask him just a few days earlier! Perhaps Cabinet members think it is impertinent of us locals to want to know what is going on. Good thing that Democratic Services is there to keep them in line. It's worth all of us lobbying the Cabinet to ensure that the proposal does include use of the site as a proper replacement for Dean Pit, and not just a bank of bins like the ones at the Spendlove.

Thu 10 Nov 2011, 20:00

Thank you Christine for the link, however that consultation period is closed.
Our Town Council have been silent on the matter and some advice on where, sensibly, we, the residents of Charlbury, should take our excess rubbish would be helpful. A 26 mile round trip is hardly the way forward with petrol prices so high. The argument that roadside collection is improved, whilst true, does not cover large articles and tree prunings etc.Surely the way to go would have been to improve Dean Tip in the minimal way that the Environment Office required until an alternative was up and running.

Thu 10 Nov 2011, 10:47

Thank you Liz for keeping this alive. One of these days our elected officers are going to realise that we are not as stupid and as easy to fob off as they seem to think we are!

Wed 9 Nov 2011, 20:01 (last edited on Wed 9 Nov 2011, 20:02)

Liz, there was a public consultation on waste disposal in Oxfordshire that opened on September 5th & ended at the end of October. Perhaps you know this, but I did not. I only found this out by accident, & certainly too late to respond.

As fas as I can see, Greystones does not figure in it, but on the other hand something that looks very much like Enstone does feature on the map of for the disposal of Construction, Demolition and Excavation waste. See https://myconsultations.oxfordshire.gov.uk/gf2.ti/-/12066/10509.jpg/pjpeg/-/KD20110804.jpg

What a sham these consultations are! The target audience is listed as "Oxfordshire residents, Young people , Older people , Councillors, Businesses, Public sector organisations, Voluntary organisations and community groups". I'd love to know what proportion of Oxfordshire residents did in fact know they were being consulted!

Tue 8 Nov 2011, 10:28 (last edited on Tue 8 Nov 2011, 10:29)

Dean Pit has closed to the annoyance of many - and some may recall that at the same time as we handed in the petition to keep it open to the County Council, WODC's cabinet came up with a great idea to open a new recycling centre themselves at Greystones outside Chippy. The cabinet even agreed to allocate £10,000 to pay for a planning agent, and to commission a report and business case. I was at a meeting of the Chippy Town Council a few weeks later and Cllrs Simon Hoare and David Harvey, both members of the cabinet, discussed this proposal and indeed, our own local councillors Neil Owen and Hywel Davies were full of praise for this ingenious plan.

So nearly four months on, I was curious as to why there was no mention of this proposal anywhere. It has not come back to WODC cabinet for discussion, and there is no planning application in the offing. I wrote to David Harvey and Simon Hoare to ask what was happening, and this is what I received in reply:

" Investigations and explorations continue on this matter and Cabinet awaits a detailed report looking at the business case and any other issues which merit consideration. At the time of emailing, we do not have a date when this will be."

So - nothing much has happened then. A cynic might well wonder - was it all a ploy to shut the protesters up, and are they hoping we will forget all about it in time? Of course I would NEVER be so cynical.....and I look forward the hearing very soon that it is all in process.