Council defends £100k feasibility study for tip

Labour-led North Tyneside council pledged to carry out a £100,000 feasibility study for a new recycling centre

A council has defended its commitment to spend £100,000 on a feasibility study for a new recycling centre.

North Tyneside Council's Labour administration pledged to consider a new household waste facility in Killingworth earlier this year.

Opposition Conservative councillors branded the prospect "unpopular and unnecessary" during an exchange at a meeting of the full council.

Liam Bones, the opposition group leader, told the meeting there was already "a perfectly good facility" minutes away in Brunswick and the plans were too expensive.

"If this was about delivering better services we'd be sitting down with Newcastle City Council and working out a sensible arrangement for shared access," Bones said.

Cabinet member for climate emergency Sandra Graham said several attempts had been made to negotiate shared access to the Newcastle City Council tip over the past five years, but requests had been rejected by the neighbouring authority.

The North Tyneside Labour administration said the prospective tip would help reduce journeys from the north west of the borough to the only other recycling centre on Wallsend Road in North Shields.

Bones was told data gathered from the centre showed a need for a closer facility, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Graham said the plans would increase recycling "for the public good".

"In line with what residents have been asking for we have commissioned this feasibility to see if such a facility in the north west might be possible," she added.