PUBLIC MOOD WAS A FACTOR

YOUR newspaper carried a report recently of a public meeting held by Chris Wellavize and attended by over 100 residents to protest against the temporary closure of household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) at Poynton and Bollington.

A critical letter followed. Allow me to set out a sequence of events previous to and following the meeting.

On February 27 Cheshire East Council took the decision to temporarily close the HWRCs in order to make a year’s saving of £263,000 along with many other measures to achieve a balanced budget.

These actions avoided a Government takeover through a Section 114 notice which would mean losing many more services and any local influence on decisions.

Something no one locally would want.

On March 17 Mr Wellavize held the public meeting.

At that meeting all the budgetary and practical difficulties of postponement were pointed out by Councillor Ken Edwards and all the reasons for postponement were presented by Mr Wellavize and thorough questions by residents.

That meeting then voted unanimously to request a meeting with the council leadership, mentioning Councillor Sam Corcoran by name.

Coun Edwards agreed to make that request.

The request was written and agreed by Mr Wellavize to both leader and deputy leader.

On March 25 a meeting was held between Coun

Michael Gorman, deputy leader, chaired by Mr Wellavize with councillor representatives of Bollington, Poynton, Adlington and Disley.

Again all the points against ‘mothballing’ the tips were presented.

On March 28 an announcement was made stating the temporary closure would be postponed.

Mr Wellavize wrote

thanking Coun Corcoran warmly for the revised decision.

There will no doubt be speculation about why that decision was made but there is no doubt in my mind that the public mood expressed so effectively by Mr Wellavize’s meeting and the subsequent discussions plus the publicity offered by your paper will have

contributed to the very welcome decision. Coun Ken Edwards