Lancashire County Council's cabinet has agreed proposals to help balance its budget by changing the opening times and days of recycling centres.

All 15 Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) will still be open at the busiest times including weekends and bank holidays, but six of the quieter sites will only open 5 days a week.

The opening hours of all recycling centres will be changed to 9am - 5pm all year round. Currently they are open from 8am to 7pm in summer, and 8am to 5pm during the winter, however surveys show that visitor numbers are relatively low at either end of the day.

The sites at Barnoldswick, Burscough, Carnforth, Clitheroe, Haslingden and Longridge will close two days during the week excluding Friday, as this is often the busiest weekday leading into the weekend.

A report to the cabinet outlined the results of public consultation on the changes to opening hours. Responses were mixed, with support for, or indifference to, the changes being roughly equal to those that disagree with them.

In a change to the original proposals Skelmersdale HWRC will remain open seven days a week. It had been proposed that the Skelmersdale site also open five days a week on the basis that there is another site in West Lancashire at Burscough, however it was accepted that the Skelmersdale site is significantly busier, receiving much more waste than other sites which were due to move to five day opening.

Feedback received during the consultation also led to a new recommendation ensuring that all sites will open on Bank Holidays, even if a facility's normal closure day is a Monday.

The report to cabinet also addressed concerns that reducing availability of the recycling centres would lead to increased fly tipping. It states that most fly tipping is carried out by unscrupulous businesses which do not want to pay for their waste to be disposed of properly. There has been no evidence of fly tipping having increased when Lancashire recycling centres had been closed in the past as the majority of residents care for their local environment and would not risk criminal penalties for fly tipping.

The changes are due to be implemented from 1 October 2019.