Modern facility to replace '˜outdated' waste depot in Newhaven

At a meeting on Monday (July 2), Lewes District Council’s cabinet agreed to allocate £4.1m of capital funding to develop and build a new waste and recycling depot in Avis Way.

The new facility will replace the council’s current depot at Robinson Road in Newhaven, which council officers say has reached the end of its useful life.

During the meeting, the council’s lead member for Waste and Recycling Paul Franklin described the proposals as ‘a very exciting project’.  

Cllr Franklin said: “As everyone knows we operate an in-house service, which performs really well against all the outside services, but we’ve never really put any investment into this department.

“For a bit of background, the depot at Robinson Road that we currently use is in very, very poor condition and is in the middle of a residential area, just off the edge of the town. The facilities are outdated and now with the larger vehicles there is a safety risk as well.

“A new facility will give the council the ability to provide modern facilities for staff welfare and to design out the safety risks present at the current site we are using.”

The council is proposing to built the new depot on council-owned land at the Avis Way Industrial Estate, part of which is currently leased out to a business.

The same site had previously been granted planning permission for a waste and recycling depot in 2015/16, but the project was abandoned due to the unexpected costs of installing a concrete slab to make the site safe for heavy vehicles. The new proposals have been altered to reduce this cost.

A public consultation on the plans is expected to take place as the council seeks planning permission later this year.

Cllr Franklin said: “It is going to give us complete modernisation, as I said we run an in-house service, it is asset development and tidies up another part of our property that we can use. It is just all good news really.”