By Amy Orton

The council has binned plans to close rubbish tips at Ashby and Coalville two hours earlier in the summer months.

Last year, Leicestershire County Council said that reducing the opening hours at the recycling and household waste sites it owns would save the authority £136,000.

The proposals would have seen household and recycling waste sites at Lount - near Ashby - and Coalville open from 9am until 5pm five days a week during the summer. 

It is understood sites will continue to open from 9am until 7pm from April to September and the winter opening hours of 9am to 4pm, five days a week from October to March, will remain in place.

At a meeting of the scrutiny committee ton Monday councillors were told that the early closure plan has been scrapped. 

Councillor Byron Rhodes, lead member for finance, delivered the news while members discussed the budget. 

He said: "We had originally planned for £130,000 to come off the recycling and household waste budget because we were proposing to reduce the opening hours. 

"We're not planning on doing that any more and so we'll be putting that back in. 

"We'll be helped a bit in the first year because we'll have a windfall from the county collection fund and we'll work the rest in."

He did not reveal why there would be a u-turn on the proposal but said that changes to the budget were as a result of feedback "from scrutiny and other sources". 

A public consultation was carried out when the proposals were first announced.

The proposal was part of cost cutting measures the authority said would result in an overall saving of £330,000. 

At the time the council said that the rest of the savings would be made by introducing a reuse scheme – where people can buy back items that others have dumped – and imposing charges for disposing of certain types of waste.

Reducing the amount of waste that the authority puts in landfill is expected to generate a significant saving.

No update was given at the meeting on the other parts of the plan. 

The council already uses a permit system for certain vehicles and some types of waste. A charge of £3 per tub/item is made for some types of non-household waste such as concrete, bricks, rubble, glass windows, slabs and plasterboard.

The proposals also include introducing charges for difficult-to-dispose of waste, such as car tyres and railway sleepers. The cash from which would go to the authority.