Opening hours extended at Wearside recycling facility allowing it to operate at weekends

Earlier in February, Sunderland City Council validated plans for established firm J & B Recycling which operates from 1 Monument Park.

According to planning documents, the site has been subject to several planning applications in recent years.

This included changes to the types of materials used for recycling and/or storage, and permission to operate the site and take and dispatch deliveries on bank holidays.

J & B Recycling operates in accordance with an Environment Agency permit and handles waste from local authority recycling schemes, with the majority from the Sunderland City Council area and some from South Tyneside.

New plans aimed to vary conditions of a previous planning approval to allow the site to accommodate occasional weekend council collections, with a time extension proposed to both operating and delivery hours.

This included 7am-5pm on Saturdays and Sundays, allowing the business to deal with 'catch-up collections'- particularly around holiday periods such as Easter and Christmas.

In a planning statement, J & B Recycling said the move would see weekend waiting times for sorting reduced alongside improved efficiency around processing and storing materials on site.

In addition, the extension of working times would also allow the site operator to "more easily facilitate the social distancing measures required during the Covid-19 pandemic."

Proposals for the extended hours were presented to Sunderland City Council’s Planning and Highways (West) Committee for decision on Tuesday (June 8) at Sunderland Civic Centre.

A report prepared for councillors said there were no objections from the council's environmental health team and that there had been no recent complaints from the public about the facility.

Planners also confirmed that the extra operations would not have any ecological impacts on nearby nature sites and that extra vehicle movements would be limited.

Following discussion, plans for the additional opening hours won unanimous support from the planning committee.

The plans will effectively allow the site to open seven days a week.

Weekday operational hours at the site will remain as 7am-6pm, Monday to Friday and 7am-5pm on bank holidays.

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