More than 14,000 waste appointments made at Sunderland tip since reopening

The Beach Street site reopened in May after a lengthy closure due to coronavirus lockdown rules.

To meet demand, Sunderland City Council introduced a permit booking system to reduce queues alongside rediverting traffic and social distancing measures on site.

According to council bosses, more than 14,600 appointments have been booked since the new system was introduced.

Deputy council leader with responsibility for environment and transport, Coun Michael Mordey, revealed the figures at Wednesday’s (June 10) virtual full council meeting.

“Officers from a number of service areas such as ICT, the contact centre, network management and communications worked alongside those in environmental services to develop and introduce an appointment booking system and traffic management to prevent the build up of excessive queues at our site at Beach Street,” he said.

“We have had issues with this in the past and we could not afford for this to happen again particularly with the work well under way on the Sunderland Strategic Transport Corridor Phase Three.

“These arrangements have been a resounding success with numerous compliments having been received from residents that have booked an appointment and visited the site to deposit household waste.”

The comments came during an update on environmental services over the lockdown period including changes to working practices.

Services which were previously suspended, such as garden waste and bulky waste collections, are now back online.

Coun Mordey thanked staff for working to tackle a huge backlog of bulky waste appointments as a result of Covid-19 – with 1,000 pick ups carried out over just three days.

He added: “I would also like to remind residents that they can book a bulky waste collection for just £10.

“Using our service, residents can be 100% sure that their waste is disposed of correctly and there’s no risk that it could turn up fly-tipped in another part of the city.”

Residents can book an appointment at the council’s household waste and recycling centre here: www.sunderland.gov.uk/household-waste-centres

Information on bulky waste collections can be found here: www.sunderland.gov.uk/article/12143/Bulky-waste-collection

For more on Sunderland City Council’s response to coronavirus, visit: www.sunderland.gov.uk/article/17026/Coronavirus-information

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