Recycling expands

A SUCCESSFUL recycling scheme looks set to be extended into Uckfield and Crowborough after receiving the thumbs up from district council members.

Wealden s CROWN (Composting and Recycling Our Waste Now) service has already been introduced into southern parts of the district and has worked alongside the existing kerbside service, which collects regular household rubbish.

Now executive members have shown the council s commitment to expanding the service by clearing it for financial consideration in this year s budget. And the councillors responsible for the scheme added that they thought any delay in introducing it to Uckfield and Crowborough would be 'damaging to the council .

The CROWN scheme, which works by separating bio-degradable household waste from non-recyclable waste, has already been introduced into Hailsham and the surrounding area, and is set to start in Heathfield, Broad Oak and Horam next month. One thousand households in Uckfield are already in the Crown scheme after a trial service was introduced to the Rocks Park Estate in 1998.

Executive members Cllrs Teresa Blaxland and Brian West last month met to consider whether they wished to implement the previously agreed decision to expand CROWN into the two towns in 2002/03 or to defer until a later year.

The councillors said they were 'fully committed to the expansion of CROWN into Uckfield and Crowborough as originally scheduled, adding: 'We believe any delay in the programme would be damaging to the council and would only support this decision if exceptional budgetary constraints required it to be deferred.

A Wealden spokesman confirmed that the scheme was one of those being looked at in the council s current financial bidding process.

By next month, more than 25,000 properties in Wealden will be served by the scheme. The council s recycling performance for 2001/2002 is estimated to be at 19.4 per cent of waste recovered, with a target of 24 per cent by 2005/06.