\n Wiltshire Council’s environment select committee will meet on Thursday, January 15 to discuss the closure of the facilities at Purton and Lower Compton, near Calne.\n<\/p>\n
\n But the discussion will be held behind closed doors – with members of the press and public being asked to leave the meeting before the debate begins.\n<\/p>\n
\n On December 9, Wiltshire Council announced its intention to close the household recycling centres at Purton and Lower Compton, near Calne.\n<\/p>\n
\n Of the council’s 10 HRCs, they are the only ones that are not on land owned by the council.\n<\/p>\n
\n The council’s contract with Hills Waste Solutions is due to expire in July this year, and councillors said they were concerned about the cost of renewing the contracts – although neither side have confirmed exactly how much that would be, and how much it would cost Wiltshire Council to establish a new HRC for the north of the county.\n<\/p>\n
\n The council has also not confirmed exactly where the new HRC would be, although the most likely contender seems to be the former salt depot in Royal Wootton Bassett.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Wiltshire councillor for Lyneham, Allison Bucknell (Conservative) spearheaded a move to call-in the decision for further scrutiny, but was thwarted by the Liberal Democrat-led cabinet.\n<\/p>\n
\n She then requested that the matter be brought before the environment scrutiny committee for discussion.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, the debate will be held as a so-called Part 2 agenda item – meaning the press and public won’t be allowed to hear what it said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Cllr Bucknell, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I was angry with the cabinet\u2019s original decision to close the HRCs with no alternative provision in place.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I was even more frustrated when I called the decision in for extra scrutiny and was unconstitutionally blocked from doing so.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I am now absolutely appalled to have been told that the discussion that will take place at the next environment select committee will be behind closed doors.\n<\/p>\n
\n “There seems to be no end to the tactics the Liberals will use to avoid scrutiny and public engagement.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Responding, Cllr Paul Sample, Wiltshire Council cabinet member for waste said: \u201cThe only reason for any public exclusion from this meeting would be if anything needs to be discussed that formed part two from the cabinet meeting that took place on 9 December.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Members of the public will have a chance to quiz the council’s Liberal Democrat leadership at a meeting of the Royal Wootton Bassett & Cricklade Area Board, which is being held at Royal Wootton Bassett Memorial Hall, Station Road, Royal Wootton Bassett on Tuesday, January 20 from 6pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wiltshire Council’s environment select committee will meet on Thursday, January 15 to discuss the closure of the facilities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-371865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}