The Household Recycling Centre (HRC) at Fosse Cross, near Cirencester will re-open next week for pre-booked visits only.

This week the two largest sites in the county at Hempsted in Gloucester and Wingmoor Farm at Stoke Orchard re-opened for essential visits only with all trips needing to be booked in advance.

Next week, from May 18, the HRC at Fosse Cross near Cirencester will re-open.

Social distancing measures will be in place to help keep visitors and staff safe and crucially anyone with covid-19 symptoms and those in self-isolating households MUST NOT visit.

To limit the number of people on-site at Fosse Cross pre-booking will be required and vehicles should only have drivers wherever possible - a maximum of one passenger is permitted if you need help to unload your waste and recycling.

The booking system has a limited number of timed slots available each day for visitors to select and only a 7 day window will be available to book at any one time. Bookings can only be made online.

Visitors are asked to only bring to site what they can safely unload themselves as site staff need to social distance so will not be able to help with unloading.

The re-use shop is closed and some recycling bins may be unavailable. For an up to date list of materials which can be accepted at the site please refer online to Gloucestershire Recycles. 

As part of the phased re-opening of the county's HRCs, plans for the safe operation of the remaining sites at Oak Quarry near Coleford and Pyke Quarry, Horsley are underway with the aim of re-opening them by the end of May.

Everyone should keep using their kerbside waste collection service, which the local councils are working hard to keep running, for their recycling, garden and food waste and general waste.

Councillor Nigel Moor, cabinet member responsible for waste said: "I'm really pleased with the way things have gone so far. We have already taken around 6,000 car bookings for the period from 11 to 29 of May for Hempsted and Wingmoor Farm and although there was some queueing on the first day we made some adjustments and now things are running well.

"I want to thank our site visitors for using the new booking system, and for following the necessary guidelines. This gives us confidence that we can now re-open Fosse Cross HRC. We will keep fine tuning the system to ensure things continue to run as smoothly as possible."

Cllr Paul Hodgkinson, Liberal Democrats group leader and local representative for Fosse Cross said: "This is really good news. Residents have lobbied me about the reopening and a Facebook poll of over 230 people on my councillor page showed 77 per cent in favour of Fosse Cross getting back into service. People have been rightly worried about fly tipping in our beautiful area.

"As the Government asks the public to return to work, I'm glad the county council administration is providing residents with this much missed facility again."

The HRC online booking system can be found here.