CONCERN has been raised over 'queues of up to 40 cars' outside a recycling centre.

Ulverston Town Councillor Mark Wilson has described the waiting time to drop off waste at Ulverston Household Waste Recycling Centre in Morecambe Road as 'awful'.

In October, Cumbria County Council placed a diversion around the recycling centre which took traffic down Watery Lane after a considerable increase in visitors.

However, concern was raised that the diversion was not working as intended, leading the council to remove the restriction.

Cllr Wilson said the long wait of 'up to 40 cars' in front you encourages residents to fly-tip.

He said: "It's been awful. They shut the road so you had to go around Watery Lane then back again.

"But then when you got there you could have 40 cars in front of you which is a seriously long wait.

"This encourages people to just turn around and fly-tip instead which is a real problem.

"And idling cars pumping pollution into the air is bad for the environment.

"There's been a real increase in visitors to the centre since lockdown and something needs to be done about tackling the amount of cars queued outside."

Cllr Wilson is calling on residents to suggest ideas to ease the traffic burden around the recycling centre.

He said: "I know that a lot more people would take items to the centre if they knew they weren’t going to get held up in massive queues.

"I don't know whether there needs to be some sort of collection service which would ease traffic around the recycling centre and stop fly-tipping.

"Or people could donate their unwanted items and it could be repurposed - I'm open to ideas.

"I think a collection service with designated routes around areas of Ulverston could work well instead of queues of traffic heading to the recycling centre and causing issues."

A spokesman for Cumbria County Council said: "The traffic management measures near the Ulverston site have been removed and congestion has reduced as a result.

"We will continue to monitor traffic levels and respond to any problems caused by queuing vehicles.

"All HWRC sites remain open for essential journeys, with no plans to close any, so there is no need for any concerns about disposing of household waste, or create unnecessary congestion outside HWRC sites.

"The council’s recycling team is in regular contact with local businesses near the HWRC sites in Ulverston and Barrow, and we will make every effort to minimise disruption to their businesses if traffic builds up on the approach to the HWRC’s."