THE re-opening of Bradford’s waste sites will have to be carefully coordinated with neighbouring areas to avoid huge queues of traffic - Council bosses have said.

Bradford Council’s waste recycling centres have been shut since late March due to the Coronavirus lockdown.

At a meeting of the Council’s Executive on Thursday, members discussed plans for how services, including waste site, may re-open in the coming weeks.

Bradford’s waste sites were shut so staff could be re-deployed to maintain essential services. And with government guidelines saying people should not leave home except for shopping for food and essentials, for exercise and if they are key workers, it remained unclear when sites might open.

Queues build up as some tips reopen for first time since lockdown

There has also been conflicting government advice, with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs calling for Councils to re-open tips, but Department of Heath advice still not classic a visit to the tip as an essential journey.

And there have been reports of huge increases in fly tipping since lockdown.

Over the weekend, tips in Greater Manchester re-opened for the first time in six weeks. So many visits were expected that some tips limited visits to cars with number plates ending in even numbers.

However, there were still huge queues of cars waiting at 7.30am - half an hour before tips opened.

Those visiting the tips were required to maintain social distancing.

At Thursday’s meeting, members heard that Bradford Council was waiting government advice - which they expected as soon as this week, before the district’s tips re-opened.

Council Leader Susan Hinchcliffe said: “We’re making plans to re-open those sites as it’s something we’re keen to see happen.

“But this is something we’ll have to coordinate with the whole of West Yorkshire.

“You can imagine that if one recycling centre in West Yorkshire re-opened first then everyone would try to go to that site.”

The meeting also heard that Bradford Council was soon to re-start its bulky waste collection service - which had also been halted due to the lockdown.

The Council was working with a contractor to re-start the service in a way that would ensure the safety of staff.

Cllr Hinchcliffe said it was not as simple as just re-starting the service - full infection control measures would have to be in place to protect those collecting waste from homes that could be infected. She added: “The absolute priority is to preserve the lives of our workers.”