The new HRC is expected to cost around £7m, including £100k in the first year, eventually replacing the current facility at Brook Road in Wimborne.

The Brook Road site is the only Dorset Council-owned HRC in the east of Dorset, and recent extensive queues show it is insufficient to fully cater for the residents in the area.

To help reduce the issues, financial arrangements have been made for residents to use HRCs in Nuffield, Millhams and Wilverley Road in the BCP area, and Somerley in Hampshire. These cost the Dorset taxpayer around £535k a year.

Even with the extra arrangement in place, the HRC in Wimborne is still unable to accommodate the current level of visitors accessing the site. Traffic queues have built up on the approach road, causing nuisance to neighbouring businesses on the industrial estate and residents of the new housing development opposite the site.

In addition, the size of the site means mechanical compaction of materials in containers is not possible, and so the capacity of certain materials in terms of weight when moving containers from the HRC to transfer facilities is reduced. The site is not split level, does not have the ability to recycle the range of materials more modern facilities can and there are limited facilities for effective re-use.

The plans for a new HRC for East Dorset, along with a small-scale transfer building, would give waste services a much-needed boost, improving accessibility and being able to cope with an increasing number of visitors in the future.

Dorset Council’s portfolio holder for Customer and Community Services, Cllr Jill Haynes, said, “It’s well-known that the current HRC in Wimborne is no longer fit for purpose, so I’m very pleased that it is being recommended that funding is allocated to address the problem and give East Dorset residents the facilities they deserve. As an example of what can be accomplished, I suggest people have a look at the HRC parts of our Bridport site as well as our proposed plans for Blandford.

“Waste services continue to be amongst the most important to Dorset residents and it is vital that we ensure everyone has access to decent facilities to dispose of items that can’t be collected at the kerbside. A new HRC in this part of the county will allow us to cope with rising visitor numbers and, most essentially, lead to even more materials being recycled and reused.”