ANY plans to introduce a recycling centre booking system in Caerphilly county borough will not be first considered by the full council - and some councillors are not happy.

Independent councillor Kevin Etheridge tabled a motion to full council asking that it discuss a report on any plans to implement a Caerphilly-wide recycling centre booking system.

Under the current council rules, such decisions are made by the cabinet or the relevant cabinet member, but proposals will go through the scrutiny process.

However, the latter does not offer all councillors a chance to have a say, only those who are members of the relevant scrutiny committees.

Speaking on the motion, Cllr Etheridge said he understood the decision is for the cabinet to make, but he believes every councillor should have their say once a report has been produced.

Council leader Cllr Philippa Marsden, said however: “This decision is clearly in the remit of cabinet. Scrutiny is a key requisite. It will go through the normal scrutiny process.”

She also described the motion as “a bit premature”.

The leader of the council’s Plaid Cymru group, Cllr Colin Mann said: “I saw this as a way of flagging up the importance as it does really affect every person in the borough.

“It’s potentially very costly if the authority doesn’t get it right.

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“I’m not arguing against this going to scrutiny, but going to council as well is a way of giving every member a chance of commenting on this.”

In December it was announced that the council failed to meet its statutory target of 64 per cent for recycling.

The recycling rate across Caerphilly dropped from 65 per cent in 2019, to 62.5 per cent in 2020.

It was the only council in Gwent to record a fall in its recycling rate, and one of four across Wales not to meet the national target.

At the time the council said it was down to a contract issue.

The failure to hit the target was one of the reasons why some councillors wanted a report on a proposed booking system to go to full council for scrutiny.

Earlier this year the council launched a consultation on a proposed booking system.

It would allow residents to book online or over the phone, an allocated slot time, to help manage the flow of traffic.

Last May, when recycling centres reopened to the public following the first national lockdown, the other four Gwent councils operated a booking system - Caerphilly was the only one to not do this.

At the time, the council's website had a monitoring system, which showed how long the wait was for each centre, and at its peak, some recycling centres had a queue time of more than three hours.

Caerphilly has six recycling centres across the county borough, all of which are now open to the public.