Around 300 members of the public squeezed into the Memorial Hall in Royal Wootton Bassett for an extraordinary meeting of the Royal Wootton Bassett and Cricklade Area Board on Tuesday, January 19.

The council plans to close two recycling centres – one at Lower Compton near Calne, and the other at Purton in the north of the county citing an increase in fees private operator Hills wants to charge.

Neil Saunders of Purton Parish Council said the HRC at Purton received 97,000 visits a year. “It is used consistently, heavily, and responsibly,” he said.

“Communities depend on this service. They have signed petitions in their thousands. They have turned up, written, emailed, and spoken. Their voices carry weight.”

He said it was a matter of fairness, and that leaving residents of north Wiltshire without a recycling facility while a replacement could be three to four years away was “unfair”.

Peter Roberts, a Royal Wootton Bassett town councillor, said: “Once again the north of the county gets the smelly end of the stick,” and insisted that fly-tipping would increase when the recycling centres closed.

Steve Bucknell, the mayor of Royal Wootton Bassett, asked the panel of councillors how closing two recycling centres and opening a replacement would be any cheaper than renewing the contract.

Those contract figures that could be shared were, but judging by the groans from the audience few were satisfied with the answer.

Wootton Bassett resident Graham Reed expressed concerns that Wiltshire Council might use its former salt depot in the town as a site for the new recycling centre. He said the roads couldn’t cope, and that the town would lose an amenity earmarked for canal restoration and a country park.

Cllr Helen Belcher, Wiltshire Council’s cabinet member for assets said the council had not picked a site yet, and promised consultation. Potential sites, she promised, would not be limited to land the council already owns.

Wootton Bassett resident Rhona Jack said “I reject the suggestion that there is no link between fly-tipping an the closure of Household Recycling Centres.”

Dave Gardner of the Royal Wootton Bassett Environment Trust demanded “meaningful consultation” over the salt depot site – and received assurances that would happen.

Diana Kirby, of Tockworth Parish Council, wanted to know how traffic would be managed at the Stanton St Quintin recycling centre near Chippenham – the closest recycling centre for people living around Royal Wootton Bassett.

Cllr Paul Sample, cabinet member for waste, said a booking system would help control the number and times of visits to the site. “Traffic is one of the reasons for the booking system that we are trialling,” he said.

Mark Hopkins, chief officer at Royal Wootton Bassett Town Council, said: “The proposal that was discussed on December 9 was to consider and consult. Why was this ignored? This is not consultation. You are defending yourselves.”

In a tense meeting – during which chairman Andrew Matthews, Wiltshire councillor for Royal Wootton Bassett East – had to call for calm the cabinet members allowed themselves one smile.

Mark Clarke, chairman of Cricklade Town Council, suggested a second home tax on weekenders could have raised £1.5 million, which would have been enough to keep the HRCs open. “Londoners were favoured and we were not,” he said to applause.

It had been the Liberal Democrat cabinet that had proposed the tax and their rivals, the Conservatives and Reform UK, who had voted it down. Cllr Grant suggested the public “asked those who voted against it.”

And there was a silver lining for those in attendance. Negotiations with contractor Hills are not over. “If Hills can get to a point where we can delay the closure then of course we can do that,” said Cllr Grant. “The ball is in their court.”