Introduction and background
Bath & North East Somerset Council has proposed a new central recycling facility to serve residents of Bath and North East Somerset to replace the existing facility at Midland Road, in the Bath Riverside area. The Council has developed a new state-of-the-art consolidated waste and recycling facility in Keynsham with the aim of expanding public recycling provision for residents across Bath & North East Somerset. Alongside the new Keynsham Recycling Hub, the council aims to provide a new recycling centre in Locksbrook Road to further serve the residents of Bath and North East Somerset particularly those in central and eastern Bath for whom Keynsham may not be readily accessible.
The Midland Road recycling centre will remain open until the new facility is open at Locksbrook Road. The whole Midland Road Waste depot and recycling centre site was allocated for housing development as part of the Bath Western Riverside Regeneration scheme and the move to Locksbrook Road will enable the site to be redeveloped for new affordable and market homes. Planning approval has already been secured for new homes.
To find out more about the Midland Road Housing Scheme proposals click here.
A project team of specialist technical consultants led by Bath-based SRA Architects was appointed to prepare the planning application for the proposed new recycling centre.
The site for Bath’s new recycling centre
The site for the proposed recycling centre is an existing council depot on Locksbrook Road to the west of the city centre and a short distance west of the existing Midland Road recycling centre.
The council has committed to ensuring that replacement household waste recycling facilities are provided for Bath residents. This will ensure car journeys are reduced and make recycling easier for city residents, reducing waste. For this reason, the council undertook a professionally-led site selection process to identify potential locations for a replacement facility, with the council depot at Locksbrook Road being deemed the most suitable.
The Locksbrook Road site is entirely within council ownership. It is located approximately 500m from the existing Midland Road recycling centre within a light industrial area and already benefits from a waste management permit for the Street Cleansing operations that currently take place at the site.
Part of the site to the east is currently leased to a local car dealership for the storage of vehicles. Bath & North East Somerset Council has advised the dealership of the emerging plans, providing sufficient time to explore alternative arrangements for when development of the recycling centre gets under way in 2025.
The existing council depot on the site is used by the council’s Street Cleansing Team. Staff and operational vehicles will be moving to an alternative site a short distance away on Locksbrook Road (the former B&NES MOT test centre), however the Cleansing Team will continue to deposit street sweepings and litter at the new recycling centre site.
The site for the new recycling centre, currently home to the council’s Cleansing Team - click to enlarge
The site for the new recycling centre is located a short distance west of the existing facility which is to be redeveloped for market and affordable housing - click to enlarge
How the recycling centre will operate
The recycling centre will consist of large containers, or skips, to receive household waste and recyclables. These will be accessed by a gantry arrangement with both steps and ramped access from where items can be placed in the containers. There will also be some smaller wheeled bins for dry recyclables; plastic cartons, paper, cans & glass.
The new recycling centre will be able to collect the following materials in skips:
- Residual household waste
- Cardboard (including items too large for kerbside collection)
- Soft furnishings
- Bulky Waste
- Garden Waste
- Wood
- Scrap metal and large electrical items such as washing machines and other white goods, excluding fridges, freezers, TVs and computer monitors
As with the existing use of the site, there will also be tipping bays on the operational side of the site for the continued use of the Bath outer and city centre weeding and street sweeping teams, but this will not be accessible to the public.
The new recycling centre will have drop-off parking bays for 11 cars, including a dedicated disabled bay and 5 waiting spaces. There will also be dedicated cycle and pedestrian access, including access from the Bristol and Bath Railway Path, with dedicated cycle stands for unloading, including cargo bikes.
Artists impressions showing how the recycling centre would look – click to open gallery of images
Access for disabled customers or those with limited mobility or heavy items
The recycling containers will be accessed by a gantry arrangement with a ramped access route as well as steps, from where items can be placed in the containers. The incorporation of ramped access into the design is intended to ease access to the containers for disabled customers, those with mobility challenges and/or heavy items. Additional support can be provided by site staff upon request.
The new recycling centre will have parking spaces for 11 cars, all of which are in front of the steps or slope including a dedicated disabled parking bay.
Access and highways
The new recycling centre will comprise of two distinct sections:
- Public facing area – where residents arrive to deposit materials for recycling
- Operational area – where the council’s operational activities take place, including transporting the collection containers to and from the centre.
This layout serves to provide separation between the public and their vehicles and the council’s operational vehicles, to ensure the safe operation of the recycling centre.
To facilitate this separation, there will be two separate vehicle accesses from Locksbrook Road. The existing Street Cleansing depot vehicle access will be retained and improved for council operational access. A new vehicle access for public use of the recycling facilities will be created approximately 30m to the east of the operational access with this being designed to an appropriate standard to allow two-way vehicle use, both entry and exit.
The creation of the new vehicle access for the public will require removal of a section of uncontrolled on-street parking on Locksbrook Road.
The public recycling area will be provided with parking spaces and a waiting area for 16 vehicles which is an increase on the 11 spaces provided at the current Midland Road site which the new facility will replace. There will also be parking for bicycles cargo bikes and motorcycles and dedicated disabled parking bay.
Plan showing the proposed access arrangements to both operational (west) and public (east) sections of the new recycling centre - click to enlarge
Pedestrian and cycle access
The nature of the use of the site is such that most of the site operations and public visits will involve the use of vehicles when carrying waste and recycling to and from the site. However, it is likely that some visits to the recycling centre will be undertaken on foot, by bicycle or public transport and the site is well located to encourage these. All the local roads benefit from footways with signal-controlled crossing facilities available on Upper Bristol Road, Lower Bristol Road, and Windsor Bridge Road within a short distance of the site.
Public area looking west - click to enlarge
The Bristol and Bath Railway Path runs along the northern towpath of the River Avon as it passes the proposed site and provides a predominantly traffic free route for pedestrians and cyclists. This route connects with a footbridge over the river that provides a further traffic free link to Lower Bristol Road and beyond. A dedicated access for pedestrian and cyclists will be provided between the new recycling centre and the Bristol and Bath Railway Path to facilitate and encourage the use of non-car modes of travel when visiting the site.
Vehicle movements
The proposed recycling centre will operate with the same opening hours and under the same booking system as the existing Midland Road site. The booking system in place for Midland Road will be transferred to the new recycling centre. The booking system ensures that only a certain number of vehicles can enter the site within a specific time period in order to spread arrivals and departures evenly across the day thereby removing the risk of queueing and reduces the vehicle emissions that may otherwise arise. The aim will be to ensure that traffic moves freely and safely in and out of the site with no build up of traffic on Locksbrook Road itself. The booking system can be used to manage this by reducing slots at busy times or increasing slots at less busy times. The site has 11 car parking spaces and 5 waiting spaces, which is 5 more than the existing Midland Road RC which mean that cars can wait within the site for an unloading bay to become free at busier times. There will also be a member of staff to check that vehicles have a booking before entering the site.
The existing and proposed recycling centres are approximately 500m apart with both being accessed primarily from Upper Bristol Road. As such, the change in traffic flow conditions will be limited to the local area between the two. For instance, drivers approaching from south of the river on Windsor Bridge Road who currently turn right towards Midland Road will instead turn left towards Locksbrook Road.
Detailed information about the traffic surveys which have been undertaken along Locksbrook Rd and at the key junctions of Station Road and Locksbrook Road with the Upper Bristol Road, are available within the Transport Assessment submitted with the planning application. The surveys were undertaken over a full week and assessed the scheme for the existing and proposed traffic flow conditions. The results confirm that whilst traffic flows will increase, the junctions have the capacity to handle this. It is predicted that there may be an increased waiting time to turn right from Locksbrook Road into the Upper Bristol Road during peak time in the morning, however controlling the booking system can be used to reduce the number of vehicles. Overall, there will be no significant traffic impact and that the assessed junctions will continue to operate broadly as at present.
Operational vehicles
It is anticipated that the operation of the site will involve an average of 4-6 HGV movements in and out of the site each weekday. This relates to bringing empty recycling and waste containers to the site, relocating containers within the site and taking full containers from the site. These operational vehicle movements are anticipated to be to and from the council’s main Waste Management depot at Keynsham and will be undertaken outside of the highway peak hours. These HGV movements will be in addition to the existing vehicle movements associated with the council's Street Cleansing team who currently operate from the site and will continue to do so post completion of the new recycling centre.
Technical plan showing tracking of operational vehicle accessing the operational section of the site - click to enlarge
Sustainability
As with the new state-of-the-art central waste and recycling centre at Keynsham Recycling Hub, the new Bath Recycling Centre will seek to place the council’s Climate and Ecological Emergency policy aims at its forefront.
Ecology surveys have been undertaken at the site by local ecology consultants. Whilst the site itself is of low ecological value, it is in close proximity to the River Avon Site of Nature Conservation Importance (SNCI), which is an important wildlife corridor, in particular for commuting and foraging bats.
The scheme has been designed to avoid impacts onto the adjacent river through careful location of lighting to avoid light spill onto the river and ensure minimal impact on wildlife.
The scheme will also include areas of native planting which will deliver an overall net gain for habitat biodiversity at the site and due to the scheme’s proximity to the watercourse biodiversity net gain units will be procured to ensure the scheme meets BNG requirements.
See the following documents in the planning application (click here to view) for more details:
- Ecology Survey and Ecological Impact Assessment
- Biodiversity Net Gain Assessment
- Lighting Assessment
Active travel will be promoted, with easy access for walking, wheeling and cycling from the Bristol and Bath Railway Path, with cycle stands for unloading provided within the site, including for cargo bikes. There will also be a dedicated pedestrian access from Locksbrook Road.
The existing office accommodation on the site will be re-used and refurbished as part of the new development, avoiding the need to construct a new building. Installing solar panels is being investigated alongside other measures as well as also aiming to reuse existing infrastructure so that the overall carbon footprint of the development can be minimised.
The Bristol and Bath Railway Path which runs alongside the site - click to enlarge
Technical considerations
In preparing a planning application for the new recycling centre for Bath, a full suite of technical studies has been completed. The site benefits from an existing waste permit issued by the Environment Agency (EA) relating to the Street Cleansing operations. However a variation to this permit will be required for the recycling centre so it is essential that key technical matters are considered. A professional team of technical consultants was appointed to carry out these studies, including:
Flooding and Drainage
The Environment Agency permit will require the production of a flood evacuation plan for the new scheme (one already exists for the existing Street Cleansing operations on site). The new recycling centre scheme has been designed with metal gantries and movable collection containers to the east of the site rather than permanent structures. In the event of a flood event warning, it is envisaged that the site will close to the public and all waste containers will be removed to the new state-of-the-art central recycling hub at Pixash Lane, Keynsham.
See the following documents in the planning application (click here to view) for more details:
- Drainage Plan
- Flood Risk Assessment and Drainage Strategy
- Land Quality Assessment (Contamination Phase 1 Investigation)
Environmental factors
The layout of the site has been carefully considered so that operational areas are located away from existing residential properties. The Environment Agency (EA) permit will require detailed description of all mitigations relating to environmental factors such as noise, odour and pests. We have many years of experience in operating similar sites in accordance to the highest environmental standards and have also worked with specialist consultants to ensure that risks are adequately identified and effective mitigation measures are put in place for the planning application and the Environment Agency permit application.
See the following documents in the planning application (click here to view) for more details:
- Noise Assessment
- Air Quality & Odour Assessment
- Gull Management Strategy
Planning application
A planning application was submitted to the planning team at Bath & North East Somerset Council in August. Following an initial round of statutory consultation, areas where further technical work is required were identified. The project team has now updated the plans informed by additional technical studies and the Local Planning Authority is now considering these updated plans, informed by further statutory consultation. Alongside the planning application, a waste permit variation will be submitted to the Environment Agency and the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) process relating to on-street parking at the proposed access points will be instigated.
Subject to the outcome of these processes, it is envisaged that the new Bath Recycling Centre would open in winter of 2025. The existing recycling centre at Midland Road would then close and the site prepared for redevelopment.
Once you have had an opportunity to read the planning application, to view the interactive map and to review the Frequently Asked Questions, you can view our responses to key themes from public engagement and find a link to the planning portal where you can respond to the statutory planning consultation on the updated plans which closes on 27 November 2024 here.
If you have any questions that haven’t been addressed on this website, you can get in touch with our team here.