Surrey's waste being tipped in Epsom

6.00.00am GMT Wed 17th Jan 2007

The waste in three out of every five refuse trucks on our narrow streets does NOT originate in Epsom and Ewell

The extent of domestic waste from outside the Borough being brought to Epsom's waste site has outraged Town ward councillors. Figures for the last 9 months show that for every 100 tonnes of local waste, another 160 tonnes is added from other parts of Surrey. Lib Dem Cllr Julie Morris is horrified that over 60% of the Juggernauts and Dust-carts coming down Hook Road to the refuse site on Blenheim Road are not necessary for handling local waste. "Why should Epsom's narrow residential roads suffer from extra lorries bringing waste from Tandridge, Reigate & Banstead, Mole Valley and Elmbridge?" she asked.

Epsom is used by Surrey County Council's French-owned contractor SWM to tip the dust-carts' contents into HGVs which take it away again to landfill sites - some in the very places the rubbish came from.

Incredibly, the joint plan agreed in 2006 by Epsom & Ewell Borough Council as well as Surrey County Council, called for the Blenheim Road recycling station - the much-used "tip" that local residents love to hate - to be moved elsewhere so that the Transfer Station could be expanded to take even more waste from other parts of Surrey, before sending it to a new Incinerator at Capel on the A24 near Dorking, planned by the Tories on Surrey County Council.

Lib Dem County Councillor Colin Taylor recently got Surrey's Local Committee for Epsom & Ewell to call for the Transfer Station to be moved out of the town - and the familiar recycling station retained instead. He said "My aim is to reduce the dangerous heavy traffic in the area of Hook Road and other overloaded local streets".

"Without the Kiln Lane Link, the traffic on many local residential roads has become unbearable and is set to get even worse. We had noticed that dust-carts were arriving in Epsom and Ewell from various nearby parts of Surrey, but until we got the figures we asked for, we had expected these would be a small minority compared to local ones" he added. "Now we learn that they are the main problem. So any further increase in their numbers - and in the number of these huge bulk carriers that would be required as a result - would be sheer lunacy".

Sadly, the Residents Associations running Epsom & Ewell Borough Council agreed last year to keep the Transfer Station in Blenheim Road on Epsom's busy Longmead Estate, despite the extra traffic on the surrounding roads, because it is quick and easy to empty Epsom & Ewell dust-carts there.