Due to continuing high levels of fly tipping at The Mound car park, Tattenham Corner, Reigate & Banstead Borough Council will be closing its recycling site at this location permanently on 17 October.
All collection bins will be removed from the site, except for the four clothes banks, and additional car parking spaces will be created.
The borough’s recycling sites can attract large quantities of non-recyclable rubbish, which is fly tipping, and a quarter of all reported fly tipping incidents in the last year have been from the Tattenham Corner site next to The Mound car park. The Council’s cleansing team is removing the equivalent of 300 transit vans full of dumped waste from the area annually.
To deter fly tippers, the Council has used mobile CCTV and has issued 16 fixed penalty notices for fly tipping and 12 for littering at this site since January. Updated signage installed in March 2024 informed visitors to the site that ongoing misuse could lead to the facility being closed without further notice.
However, the number of fly tipping cases has not reduced and continues to include commercial and trade waste, as well as non-recyclable household rubbish continues to be dumped. The Council estimates around 70% of the dumped waste is made up of items that cannot be recycled, which contaminates the recyclable waste that people are disposing of responsibly.
As a result, the Tattenham Corner recycling site, which is on Royal Drive, will close permanently on Thursday 17 October. The Mound car park will close for one day on 21 October to allow for the creation of additional car parking spaces.
Cllr Hannah Avery, Executive Member for Neighbourhood Services says: “When fly tipping at one of our recycling sites blights the local area and prevents us from recycling all the waste that we can, it is doing more harm than good. It reduces the environmental benefits, increases the financial costs of waste disposal and takes our Cleansing team away from other work to keep the borough clean.
“I want to thank the majority of residents who are recycling their waste responsibly and especially those that are going the extra mile to arrange local clean ups.
“I want it to be easy for Reigate & Banstead residents to recycle as much of their household waste as possible, but I also want them to be confident that their recycling gets recycled properly and has a positive environmental impact.”
The Council originally established its network of recycling sites for those residents who may not have access to its full household recycling service. However, with the rollout of the flats recycling service, all residents in the local area can now recycle all the items being collected at the Tattenham Corner recycling site from home (with the exception of textiles).
Local residents with additional recycling can use the nearby recycling site at Asda in Burgh Heath or visit Surrey County Council’s Community Recycling Centre at Epsom just over three miles away.
All householders, businesses and charities must make sure their rubbish is disposed of properly, or risk prosecution or a £400 fixed penalty notice. People can check whether a waste collector is properly licensed by visiting www.gov.uk/find-registered-waste-carrier.
To report a fly tip to the Council, visit www.reigate-banstead.gov.uk/report-it.
