Swindon Borough Council has announced 1000 extra appointments for residents to book visits to the Household Waste and Recycling Centre (HWRC) via its website.
This increases the monthly total of booking slots to 21,000 in order to help meet seasonal demand from residents taking advantage of the good weather to tidy gardens and spring clean homes.
However, the council is also urging residents to help increase capacity even further by cancelling or rescheduling online any booked slots they no longer need.
Around 4,000 of booked appointments to the HWRC - or 20 percent - are missed each month. People can help to free these up for others by simply completing the online form on the council’s website to cancel or reschedule their appointment.
This can also be done by using the link provided in their booking confirmation email.
The council says the online booking system for the HWRC has been extremely popular with residents since originally being introduced during the covid pandemic. It brought an end to long queues of vehicles at busy times, the carbon dioxide emissions from idling engines and the disruption to neighbouring businesses.
After some residents said it could sometimes be a challenge to book appointments, the council has found a way to make a further 250 booking slots available each week.
Cllr Chris Watts, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for the Environment and Transport, said: “After taking up the Cabinet Member position responsible for waste and recycling services last month, I was keen to act on resident feedback on how we could create some additional booking capacity at the Household Waste and Recycling Centre.
"Swindon is in a unique position compared to most other councils, with only one HWRC serving over 97,000 households.
"Increasing the monthly total of booking slots to 21,000 is a positive starting point but I’d like to see what else we can do to maximise the number of residents able to visit the HWRC whenever they need to.
"Residents can help too by cancelling or rescheduling any appointments they no longer need using the online form on our website or using the link provided in their booking confirmation email.
"We will also look at ways we can make the process to cancel and reschedule appointments as quick and easy for residents as possible.”
More information on visiting the Household Waste and Recycling Centre is available from www.swindon.gov.uk/hwrc
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