A council is to ban pedestrians from civic dumps again, after an experiment with letting people in on foot was deemed a failure

Several years ago, Ards and North Down Council outlawed walk-ins at all nine of the Household Recycling Centres (HRCs) it runs, citing health and safety concerns.

The move went down especially badly in Holywood and Donaghadee, two towns where locals had enjoyed being able to stroll in and dump off a few items in centrally located HRCs as they saw fit.

Over the past few months, officials experimented with lifting the walk-in ban in both of those locations – but the tests have been deemed a failure, after very few people took up the chance.

The council, which is the first one in Northern Ireland to make every resident reserve a slot to use HRCs, also made pedestrians book in advance for walk-ins during a three-month trial period.

From July though September, just 18 pedestrians booked an appointment in Holywood; the equivalent of 1% of slots available. Although Donaghadee saw 96 pedestrians, that’s still only 9% of available appointments, and the number of walk-ins dropped off significantly once September hit.

A report on the experiment due to be debated by a council committee this week recommends reinstating the ban, though adds that officials could still check into other ways of allowing pedestrian access in future.

Two Alliance politicians suggested lifting the ban last year, pointing to arrangements in neighbouring Belfast as proof walk-ins could work.

Belfast Council runs four HRCs and three civic dumps; two of the HRCs and two of the dumps allow people in on foot.

Last year, Alliance councillor Hannah Irwin and alderman Martin McRandal suggested that with a few minor adjustments, people in Ards and North Down could benefit from the same choice of access Belfast enjoys.

Back then, Ms Irwin suggested the council had “a great opportunity to learn from” Belfast, and that Ards and North Down should be able to adjust its system to allow walk-ins at smaller HRCs. She added that the booking system should allow each facility to stagger arrivals, eliminating danger.

Many of the pedestrian bans were brought in due to officials worrying about mixing motorists with people on foot in small enclosed spaces – something that was rendered bitterly ironic at the council’s busiest HRC, one in Bangor, where shortly after the ban was introduced a man who arrived by car was knocked down, though not seriously hurt, after exiting his vehicle.

Two years ago the council brought in its booking system in an attempt to get its recycling figures back in line.

Recycling in Ards and North Down tanked after Covid hit, sending it from being one of the best performing areas in Northern Ireland to one of the worst and spiking the amount of landfill the council buried. The booking system was supposed to boost its figures by preventing people from outside the district as well as commercial businesses using the HRCs.

The council has hailed the system’s success, though it was met with a 4,000-strong petition from people who objected to it, plus there were teething problems as people who booked too often found themselves automatically barred from using HRCs.