MEQ- Barrowell Green Recycling Centre

Response details:

Dear Cllr Stephanos Ioannou,

Thank you for contacting us regarding your constituents recent visit to Barrowell Green Recycling Centre.

We have been made aware of recent issues onsite resulting in a backlog of materials. This is unfortunately due to our hydraulic grab machine breaking down which means some items could not be lifted, crushed or moved. Engineers were called to carry out the necessary repairs and the team on site worked on clearing the backlog of materials getting the site back up and running smoothly.

As well as ensuring the site didnt need to close during this time, the on site team done all they could to ensure they upheld the safety of the site and all visiting residents.

With regards to the Barrowell Green Recycling Centre closing, these rumours have been circulating for the past few years but there are currently no plans to close the site.

All residents are advised to book an appointment for their visits to the Barrowell Green Recycling Centre. The limit on visitors assists with keeping the traffic flowing and stops overcrowding within the site so there are not multiple cars queuing outside.

The appointment system has been kept in place following on from Covid because of the many advantages it has provided the site with:
– No long queues to enter the site
– Safer for residents on foot as there are less cars
– Steady flow of traffic around the site allowing more staff to be available to help residents and keep the site tidy
– Provides residents with an all-round better and more efficient experience
– Better management of the containers as its easier to predict when they will be filled and therefore book in for them to be emptied
– Less traffic and less noise (especially early in the morning) outside the site for the local residents

These are all improvements to the site that have been fed back to them from local residents, site users and staff since the introduction of the appointment system.

It is the site managers duty to maintain the smooth running of the site including the booking system for the safety of visitors, not allowing overcrowding on the site, and preventing queues forming. At the managers discretion, when the booking slots havent been filled and the site is quite, residents may be allowed in without a booking.

There are currently no plans to remove the booking system.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

I can only apologise for any inconvenience caused during your constituents recent visit and we thank you for the feedback but the site team have assured us that the site is back up and running with the backlog of materials now cleared.

Kind regards
Selma Leonard

Original enquiry description

I hadn’t expected to be writing to you so early after taking up residence here but feel compelled to convey my feelings about Barrowell Green Recycling Centre, which I used for the first time last week. I am not an expert on recycling centres but I have visited a few over many years in adjacent boroughs and have never seen one in such as chaotic state as Barrowell Green. Not only is it disorganised, but it is almost unusable and bordering on the dangerous.

It is no exaggeration to say that there are mountains of every kind of waste, to the extent that it cannot be easily removed as the container trucks will have great difficulty reaching the containers. Indeed, such is the amount of rubbish, that I am not entirely sure that there are any containers as they are obscured by the volume of rubbish.

I exchanged a few words with other people who were trying to deposit their waste who told me that they had never seen it in such a state. One lady volunteered that it may have been left to decline to this level because the council was planning to close the site, but whatever the council’s intentions are, there is no excuse for the recycling centre to be seemingly devoid of any management whilst it is still operational and continuing to provide a vital service to the community.

By some coincidence, I saw a piece on last night’s news about a fire at a recycling centre in Wandsworth, which had been going for four days, covering the surrounding streets in smoke. If Barrowell Green went up in flames for any reason the conflagration would be massive given the amount of wood and other flammable material there, and as an asthma sufferer, I would not be happy.

I have to say that as a first impression of Enfield the recycling centre gives a very poor image of our borough, and I would request you to investigate with some urgency what has gone wrong there and take remedial action before something far more serious occurs.

Ironically, whilst most other recycling centres have disposed of the pre-booking system introduced during Covid, Barrowell Green still demands this of residents. What on earth for? Firstly, nobody checks whether you have a booking, and even if you have, there is no place to deposit your waste, so what is the point?

Thank you and best regards,