A councillor has claimed the Conservative administration of Staffordshire County Council has “put the final nail in the coffin” of Burntwood’s tip.

Cllr Steve Norman
Cllr Steve Norman

The criticism came from the Leader of Lichfield District Council’s Labour Group and former County Councillor Steve Norman.

His comments come in the wake of a recommendation that an independent review be set up to look at the future of Burntwood’s Household Waste and Recycling Centre and other similar facilities across the county.

However, Cllr Norman claims that on July 21 the County Council’s Cabinet had spent three minutes on the main Scrutiny Committee’s recommendation.

He explained:

“The Cabinet showed contempt for the Scrutiny process by not even referring to their all-party request to carry out an independent review using a Policy Advisory Group – a process set up the controlling group themselves last year.  Instead they accepted the kind offer by Councillor Robert Marshall to review his own decision!

“Cllr Marshall, the Cabinet Member responsible for the sites, first closes our site by press release, without proper authority,  and then when I challenged this closes it without any consultation whatsoever and without bothering to amend the published press releases or notice attached to the fence of the site.

“Not a single local County Councillor asked to speak at the Cabinet meeting or even provided a written submission on behalf of their voters.  That would have been noted by the Cabinet and give them hope of an easy win when the inevitable conclusion comes from Cllr Marshall.

“July 21 will go down in county history as the day that Scrutiny died in Staffordshire and we shall all reap the damage that will do to front-line services from Burntwood to Biddulph.”

Following the original criticism of the decision to close the town’s tip, Cllr Marshall admitted that a more thorough consultation had not been carried out. He said:

“There was no point because I know what residents and local councillors would say.”

Founder of Lichfield Live and editor of the site.