Opponents to axing Ludlow rubbish tip outraged

The decision to axe the Coder Road Amenity Skip and Household Recycling Centre was announced yesterday after months of consultation and a petition signed by 2,000 people to keep the site open.

Campaigners have called the decision to close it at the end of February as "appalling".

But Shropshire Council cabinet member Councillor Steve Charmley, who finally pulled the plug on the site at a meeting on Tuesday evening, said closure was the "most appropriate" option for the site.

He said scrapping the under-performing site would save the council £100,000.

"I acknowledge that the Coder Road site is popular with many local people," he said.

"However the majority of household waste taken to Coder Road is 'black bag' waste that ends up in landfill rather than going to be recycled."

He said it would cost the taxpayer £600,000 to bring Coder Road up to the same standard as its other sites.

A decision on the tip's future was put off last October after a massive response to the petition calling for it to be preserved, but a second round of consultation which ended at Christmas only got 112 responses.

Former Ludlow deputy mayor Amanda Pope, who spearheaded the campaign to keep it open said: "People from Clee Hill and Cleobury Mortimer are going to have a really long way to go.

"It just seems so unfair. It seems in Ludlow everything's being sold off piecemeal.

"It's very sad, and I'm very sad on other people's behalf - it's appalling," she said.

Campaigner Andy Boddington said it was a "disgraceful decision".

"We will get more fly tipping and more littering," he said. "People just aren't going to drive a 20-mile round trip to dispose of their rubbish.