The weekend sunshine inspired the county’s gardeners and DIY enthusiasts to tackle all those post-winter jobs and then take stuff to the dump – no surprise there.  So it is shocking that the county’s household waste site network promptly crumpled under the strain.

More than half of the county’s household waste sites – Buntingford, Harpenden, Hemel Hempstead, Letchworth, Potters Bar, Rickmansworth, St Albans and Ware – had emergency partial or full closure because they were unable to cope with the demand.

“The Conservative administration plans to rip another £750 thousand out of the budget for operating the county’s household waste sites,” said county councillor Sandy Walkington.  “We don’t yet have details of how they are going to achieve this.  It seems inevitable that some sites will close and the opening hours at others will be curtailed.  Yet this weekend has demonstrated that the existing network is already unable to cope.

“There is a real threat that Hertfordshire will become fly tip heaven,” Sandy said.

“The Conservative administration at County needs to realise that there will continue to be summer weekends, residents will expect to be able to use the household waste site network, and there needs to be an urgent review of the lessons learned from this last weekend’s fiasco.”