THE creation of a new £7m tip will be recommended by Dorset Council.

At Dorset Council's cabinet meeting on April 6, councillors will recommend approving the funding of a new Household Recycling Centre (HRC) in east Dorset.

The tip will initially require £100,000 in the first year and is expected to cost around £7m in total, eventually replacing the current facility at Brook Road, Wimborne, which is not fit for purpose.

The current site, which is the only Dorset Council-owned tip in the east of the county, is insufficient to fully cater for the residents there, as traffic queues on the approach road cause nuisance to neighbouring businesses on the industrial estate and residents of the new housing development opposite the site.

The small size of the site also stops the council from using mechanical compaction of materials in containers, thereby reducing the capacity of certain materials in terms of weight when moving containers from the tip to transfer facilities. The site does not have the ability to recycle the range of materials more modern facilities can and there are limited facilities for effective re-use.

A new HRC would improve accessibility and cope with an increasing number of visitors in the future. It would also reduce the council's need for cross-border arrangements with other authorities, which currently cost the Dorset taxpayer around £535,000 a year.

Councillor Jill Haynes, Dorset Council’s portfolio holder for customer and community services, 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."