Feedback from the Spring 2013 HWRC customer satisfaction survey
Thank you to everyone who took part in our Household Waste Recycling Centre Customer
Satisfaction Survey earlier in the year. Here you will find a summary of the findings and some
feedback to specific comments made.
The statistics presented are shown as results from the online survey (and in brackets the results of
the on-site face to face survey).
Number of respondents 136 (1152)
Most respondents visit a HWRC once every few months – 56% (34%), followed by once a month –
25% (30%).
We asked you how satisfied you are with our HWRCs – here is the proportion of you who rated the
categories as good or excellent:
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Site opening times 79% (79%)
Traffic queue times 87% (88%)
Signage and information on site 90% (96%)
Tidiness and cleanliness of site 97% (97%)
User friendliness of site 88% (97%)
Staff approachability and helpfulness 91% (98%)
Overall rating of service an facilities 90% (97%)
Only 18% (18%) of users who would have liked help while on site were not able to receive
assistance.
Here are a selection of comments from the online survey:
“The staff have always been very helpful whenever I have been to the centre. “
“Rugby recycling centre is a good example of being very organised.”
“The staff at Princes Drive are always friendly and always volunteer to help. Excellent service from
them.”
“The Princes Drive site is very well run.”
“We think the service provided to recycle materials is really good and the shop that takes usable
things and sells them to others is an excellent service.”
“I do like the charity shop on-site.”
“When I ask where to put certain items, the staff are helpful. It is good that I can give some items to
the charity shop.”
“I brought lots of garden waste to the site and was very impressed by the capacity at the site and the
fact it is all recycled.”
“Really pleased to hear about the initiatives in the county with community organisations running
sites and developing volunteers.”
“Excellent friendly staff.”
“These are excellent facilities which allow a significant recycling to be achieved through segregated
containers.”
“The staff are always extremely helpful.”
A number of issues were raised in the comments, including:
 Requests were made to improve Judkins site, Nuneaton, including: better road surface,
better traffic management, better site layout, request for a reuse shop.
Warwickshire County Council have procured the provision of a new, state of the art, household
waste recycling centre for Nuneaton, to be located close to the existing site and due to open in 2014.
 There was a comment that the proximity of Grendon’s site to both housing and the busy A5
roundabout was undesirable.
The good news is that on 12/06/2013 a brand new household waste recycling centre for North
Warwickshire, called Lower House Farm, opened a few miles down the road at Baddesley Ensor.
(The Grendon site is now closed and is up for sale.)
 Opening times received your lowest rating in terms of satisfaction and the comments back
this up.
61% of respondents to our survey didn’t know about our later opening times until 6:30pm on a
Wednesday in the summer (at all sites except Stockton and Shipston). So we have carried out new
promotion about this – on the web, in local papers, via social media and in our leaflet.
 You talked about concerns with the policies we employ at our sites potentially encouraging
some people to fly tip. The policies you were concerned about included the opening hours,
the restrictions on non-household waste including construction and demolition waste and
our vehicle restriction policy.
When settling on these policies, our elected members consider the pros and cons of any decisions,
including impact on increased flytipping, and they will continue to bear that in mind in future policy
developments.
 There were comments regarding the inconvenience of taking chemicals and paint to Princes
Drive, Leamington.
The new Lower House Farm site now also takes chemical waste. Other sites are not able to accept
this type of waste due to restrictions with our licences. However, we have a pilot reuse scheme for
good quality paint operating currently at Stockton and Wellesbourne. A chemical waste form
(available from Warwickshire Direct) should be completed for any chemicals taken to either site,
aside from water based emulsion paint. This process protects the health and safety of both the staff
at the receiving site and the waste owner.
 There were some comments regarding the speed bumps at Princes Drive.
The bumps we use are of a standard nature for a speed restriction level of 10mph.
 There were some comments about the new parking arrangement at Princes Drive.
This new arrangement is based on research and advice from the Environment Agency on best
practice regarding recycling centre layout. The aim is to eliminate collisions due to reversing
vehicles.
 “The skips for garden soil etc. and building type waste are very high, making it extremely
difficult to raise the waste to enough height to empty bags.”
This comment has been passed to the operations team. Do ask for help from the operatives.
 “Princess Drive, Leamington is full, it should be relocated as it is badly placed, it should be
moved to along Europa way.”
There are no plans at this stage to relocate the Leamington facility. We appreciate it is a popular site,
however access should improve when the local infrastructure improvements are complete.
 “We have a lot of animal bedding waste from rabbits and guinea pigs and have to put it in
the non-recyclable waste. Surely appropriate animal waste can be recycled.”
Although this type of waste can be recycled, the green garden waste collected at the household
waste recycling centres is processed via open windrow composting. Animal waste is not suitable for
this type of reprocessing.
 “I think that opening the centre to trade disposal would also benefit the community: make a
small charge per vehicle, small vans & pick-ups only perhaps.”
A scheme for allowing small businesses to dispose of commercial waste on a chargeable basis at
more of our sites is currently in development.
 “Not allowing 'walk-in' waste disposal is not user-friendly”
Health and Safety risk assessments carried out for ‘walking in’ waste demonstrate that this would be
an unsafe practice, so it is not allowed. In addition, only allowing waste in via a vehicle allows us to
better monitor the use of our sites for disposing of commercial waste.
 “Some other authorities allow 'free' reuse of unwanted items. If something is of use to
someone which someone else has thrown away, people should be allowed to 'have' it.“
All sites except Nuneaton’s now have charitable reuse shops and we encourage and promote the use
of these by our customers. These shops are thriving, but not everyone who has reuseable items
wants them to go to reuse. Once an item has entered the recycling part of our site, it is classed as
waste and can only leave our possession to go to a facility authorised by the Environment Agency,
with a carrier authorised by the Agency, accompanied by the correct paperwork. Frustrating as it
might sometimes be, the operatives are right to not allow the practice. Our appreciation is extended
to everyone who donates to and buys from the on-site charity shops.
 “More information on what is recyclable would be useful, especially objects which contain
mixed materials (e.g. chipboard with metal or plastic parts attached).”
This comment has been passed to our promotions team. Do ask our friendly operatives on site if you
are not sure which container to use.
 There was a suggestion of a site map for each site to be published.
This idea has been forwarded to our promotions team. We have recently upgraded our signage
across all of our sites with high level triangular signs to allow you to see where containers are from a
distance.