Harborough's tip set to be saved from closure – but it will remain open on reduced timetable

Market Harborough's tip, which was at risk of closure, is now set to remain open on a reduced timetable.

Leicestershire County Council was previously considering closing the waste sites at Market Harborough and Shepshed in a bid to save money.

The cash-strapped county council is still facing an £83 million budget gap over the next four years despite having already identified £81 million of savings and desperately needs to cut costs in order to balance its books – something it is legally obliged to do. The authority has now said public reaction to the plan coupled with additional funding expected from the Government has led to a change of heart when it comes to the sites.

Instead of closing the two sites completely, it is now proposing to have them open for fewer days a week. The Shepshed tip could now be open just two days a week, while the Market Harborough tip will be brought onto a shared timetable with the one at Kibworth which means between them residents in the area will have access to a waste site seven days a week. A consultation into the new proposal is expected to go live this month.

A third tip at Somerby, south of Melton, was also in the firing line and is still expected to close. Most of the changes to opening hours for all other tips in the county previously consulted on are also expected to still go ahead. However, the council said it had also heard the concerns from local residents that not everyone is able to take a trip to the tip during 9am to 5pm work hours. The local authority said it is now considering keeping the waste sites which run on Tuesdays through Fridays open until 7pm.

Lead member for waste services Blake Pain said: “There is a belief out there in some quarters that when we consult, we don’t listen to the feedback that we received during the consultation. But in this instance, we heard very loud and clear that waste and recycling sites are valued local amenities and we’ve set about being able to maintain those amenities for the benefit of the local public, but also make a contribution towards the very difficult savings that we’ll continue to have to make.”

Leicestershire County Council said the move has become possible after the Government announced a further £600 million for councils across the country for the next financial year. The authority has not yet been told how much of this it will receive, but it predicts an increase in its funding of £5 million.

The extra Government funding now expected has also helped the council cut down how much money it will have to use from its reserves – one-off pots of cash used by councils to bridge the gap between income and outgoings – to balance the books this year. Some £6 million of reserves are now anticipated to be used, compared to a previous estimate of £12 million. This is the first time in more than a decade that the council has had to use this pot of funding to present a balanced budget.

The additional money is welcome by the council, but deputy leader Deborah Taylor described it as a “sticking plaster” with the extra funding expected for one year only. The authority is looking at making £164 millions of savings within four years, £81 million of which has already been identified.

Councillor Taylor said: “It is still really, really difficult for us in the current climate. We remain a well-run council and we’ve saved £262 million since 2010. But the cost of social care and those other demands, inflation, the national living wage that we’re all facing has made this one of the toughest budgets we’ve ever had to face. I think we say that quite often, but it just gets harder and harder every year.”

The council is also planning to put up its share of council tax by the highest possible amount when the budget is expected to come into play in April. The full rise – three per cent towards general spending and an additional two per cent towards social care costs – will bring in around £18 million. While the council said this is a hugely important revenue stream for it, it has previously warned that money would not even cover the £20 million more it will be paying in staff costs from pay rises. The proposed council tax increase is set to cost a Band D property £76 more next year for the county share alone. Districts and borough councils as well as the police and fire service also collect tax from residents in the county.

The local authority is also setting aside some money to carry out flood investigations following the battering the county received from various storms over the start of the year. It hopes this work will allow it to identify what needs to be done to better weatherproof the local area and then it can bid for Government funding to carry out those improvements.

Councillors will meet later this month to debate and vote on next year’s budget.