{"id":494855,"date":"2026-03-25T17:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T17:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/494855\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T17:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T17:25:11","slug":"frustration-over-delayed-50m-eastleigh-recycling-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/494855\/","title":{"rendered":"Frustration over delayed \u00a350m Eastleigh recycling centre"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The materials recovery facility (MRF) in Eastleigh<\/a> is a joint project between Hampshire County Council, Portsmouth City Council and Southampton City Council.\n<\/p>\n

\n The site in Chickenhall Lane was identified in 2020, with planning permission secured two years later.\n<\/p>\n

\n Southampton councillors have now been told the facility will not be operational until 2028.\n<\/p>\n

\n Cllr John Savage, cabinet member for environment and net zero. Picture: Southampton Labour\n<\/p>\n

\n Rob Harwood, Conservative councillor for Harefield, questioned the Labour administration on the slow progress of the project after the city council\u2019s share of the initial budget was set aside in 2021.\n<\/p>\n

\n Speaking at an overview and scrutiny management committee meeting on Thursday, March 19, Cllr Harwood said: \u201cWhat the hell has been going on? What have you been doing?\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt is not coming online for seven years after the money was allocated. What\u2019s going on?\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019re still not recycling what we should be and you keep saying we need to push up recycling.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019re never going to do it until you sort these plastics out.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe money has been available. Why hasn\u2019t that centre been built?\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Cllr Rob Harwood, Conservative member for Harefield ward. Picture: Submit\n<\/p>\n

\n Local authorities in Hampshire are not able to collect plastic packaging, such as yoghurt pots, or Tetra packs in recycling wheelie bins.\n<\/p>\n

\n This is expected to remain the case until the MRF is built.\n<\/p>\n

\n John Savage, councillor responsible for environment<\/a>, said he shared the opposition member\u2019s frustration.\n<\/p>\n

\n Cllr Savage said: \u201cI am absolutely sick to death of the fact we have got people who come from all different parts of the country who are frustrated because the kind of (recycling) streams you are talking about don\u2019t go in.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n The Labour councillor said the protracted process was not due to any unwillingness to move forward from Southampton City Council.\n<\/p>\n

\n He said it was down to central government and other councils in the tripartite agreement.\n<\/p>\n

\n Cllr Savage said he felt the authority was a junior partner in the programme.\n<\/p>\n

\n Cllr Harwood disputed this view and said the agreement had been running for 30 years.\n<\/p>\n

\n He said: \u201cYes, in terms of volumes Portsmouth and Southampton aren\u2019t the same as Hampshire but it is still significant.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt is up to us to make sure our voice is heard.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe fact the site was identified, it was cleared, the money was allocated, I just don\u2019t understand, apart from maybe inter-council wrangling, why we didn\u2019t go ahead with it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Steve Leggett, who previously held the councillor responsibility for waste services, there had been issues around planning with the Chickenhall Lane.\n<\/p>\n

\n Cllr Savage met with Hampshire and Portsmouth council leaders and waste disposal service contractor Veolia at the site earlier this month.\n<\/p>\n

\n The committee heard contracts for the MRF are set to be signed imminently.\n<\/p>\n

\n Cllr Savage said: \u201cWe are moving forward with it now.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt is a really good story and I suppose with a flexible operation we will be recycling stuff that doesn\u2019t go in our bins yet.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere will be new stuff coming online which we will be able to recycle more and more and I\u2019m really pleased with where we are now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The materials recovery facility (MRF) in Eastleigh is a joint project between Hampshire County Council, Portsmouth City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-494855","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\/494855","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=494855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}