Monifieth hopes of using a near-£1 million land cash windfall to save local recycling provision from the axe look to have been dashed.
The community fears this week will signal the final death knell for the burgh’s skip site with an Angus Council member/officer group report due to be published on a re-think of provision instigated by the authority’s new administration.
It has emerged Angus Council recently received more than £900,000 from housebuilder Taylor Wimpey for a slice of ground needed to access its development of hundreds of homes at Victoria Street.
The council has said closure of the Monifieth centre will save £100,000 a year.
Local SNP councillor Sheila Hands said the six-figure sum could “future-proof” recycling provision for the Sidlaws, but has been told that the one-off capital receipt will go into the cash-strapped authority’s general fund and cannot be ring-fenced to be spent locally.
“This one-off capital receipt of £942,000 for the land has only very recently been received by the council,” said Ms Hands.
“If that’s money that has come into Monifieth, I don’t think it is unreasonable for the people of Monifieth to expect that it should be invested in the community and this could be used to future-proof local recycling provision.”
Strategic director Alan McKeown said such receipts are put into the council’s general fund, and officials have also dismissed a suggestion of charging skip site users to generate revenue to keep facilities open, saying that would be in breach of the regulations applied to mandatory provision of such services.
Ms Hands was present at last week’s packed public meeting to discuss the issue and said she was both surprised by the timing of it, and disappointed by the lack of comment from administration colleagues.
“Given that all the scheduled meetings of the group conducting the recycling review have passed, and a draft report with recommendations had already been prepared for the full council meeting on Thursday, I was puzzled by the timing of the meeting.
“And having had a lot to say during the local council election campaign early this year, it was interesting that neither Councillors (Craig) Fotheringham nor (Ben) Lawrie had anything to say at the meeting.
“Both are administration councillors who called for the review and were elected on a platform of reversing the committee decision of May 2016.”
She added: “At the meeting, council leader Bob Myles stated he “would leave no stone unturned” and consider all options.
“The SNP group are calling on the administration to support our proposal to ring fence the Taylor Wimpey capital receipt to protect local recycling provision.”