Eastwood MSP, Jackson Carlaw is calling on East Renfrewshire Council to return to pre-Covid arrangements at the Greenhags household waste recycling facility in Newton Mearns.
At the onset of the pandemic and to comply with the legal restrictions in force, the council introduced an online booking system for visits to it’s recycling centres.
The online system means that residents can no longer turn up unannounced and have to pre-book a slot at one of the facilities.
The final legal Covid restrictions in Scotland were brought to an end on 1st May 2022 but East Renfrewshire Council decided to maintain the booking system for it’s recycling facilities including Greenhags.
In a representation to the local authority’s Environment Service in August 2023, Mr Carlaw highlighted that it had been more than one year since the expiry of the legal restrictions and he questioned why the council had not reverted to the pre-pandemic arrangements.
The Eastwood MSP made further representation in October 2024 to call on the council to discontinue the online booking system but the local authority defended it’s decision not to return to the pre-Covid arrangements in full.
The council believes that the system has delivered benefits for residents including a quieter site and limited road congestion problems.
Scottish Conservative MSP for Eastwood, Jackson Carlaw said:
“I am strongly of the view that the remaining Covid arrangements at Greenhags in my constituency should be scrapped with residents again able to visit when it is most convenient for them and to no longer be restricted by what slots if any remain available through the online booking system.
“Constituents have approached me to state that it can be very challenging to reserve a suitable slot and it is often the case that the recycling centre at Greenhags is fully booked.
“Before the emergence of Covid, the Greenhags recycling centre always worked in a fairly fluid manner and any time that I visited, there were never any signs of major problems.
“The final legal Covid restrictions in Scotland ended two and a half years ago and I am hugely frustrated that the local authority has not returned to the successful pre-pandemic arrangements at the Newton Mearns recycling centre.
“I am entirely unimpressed by the council’s decision to maintain the online booking system and the current set-up is significantly inferior to what was in place before the emergence of Covid.”
