Sir.–I would like to make a few observations after reading the article about the new opening hours at the tip (The Gazette, April 16).

I do not believe the changes have been communicated to residents. Although you refer to Councillor Woodward saying that the county council had notified residents about the changes, there is no indication of how this notification was actually distributed. Perhaps the county council need to take a look at their communication plan.

Regarding the “chaos” in Wade Road, in the past there have been occasions during the day when there has been a queue of cars trailing out of the site on to the main road.

It will happen due to various factors and you would expect it to happen. I am concerned that the county council seem to have applied the same opening hours adjustment to all of their 24 sites as your article indicates. I wonder what the results of the survey were for individual sites?

Perhaps Basingstoke is different to other sites?

It should also be noted that the people your reporter interviewed seemed to be referring to congestion problems in early April. This is, of course, the Easter holiday period when I suspect residents will be having some time off during the school holidays and doing some clearing out and wanting to visit the tip to dispose of items. Did the county council survey cover holiday periods or was it just “normal” days?

As for Wade Road itself, those not using it to visit the tip seem to treat it as a race track, just seeing a long straight stretch of road where they can accelerate to their hearts content, not expecting people to want to slow down to turn into the tip, or that vehicles might want to exit the tip.

Some improvement in traffic control along Wade Road might be a good investment.

Finally, in the league table of English Local Authorities’ Household recycling performance for 2013/4, Basingstoke and Deane were close to the bottom only achieving 25.1 per cent.

And the local tip now has reduced hours potentially making it more difficult for residents to recycle.

–Allan J Palmer, Packenham Road, Basingstoke.