A PETITION signed by 2,500 people in the Gillingham area demanding a household recycling centre for the town will soon be delivered to County Hall waste chiefs.

The demand follows the release by Dorset County Council of a previously confidential document that a Gillingham councillor says contradicts earlier statements by senior officers.

Cllr David Milsted has recently won a battle to publish a page of an internal county council document describing Shaftesbury’s household recycling centre as “inadequate” to serve an area including Gillingham.

Mr Milsted said his earlier calls for a household recycling centre for Gillingham had been met with a statement from the council’s waste director that the centre at Shaftesbury could serve both towns.

“There is sometimes a notable lack of joined-up thinking at County Hall where one department doesn’t necessarily know what the other is doing,” Cllr Milsted told the Daily Echo.

The bid for a household recycling centre for Gillingham would now be re-launched with the presentation to county councillors of 2,500 signature petition, he added.

Mr Milsted told a recent meeting of Gillingham Town Council that the county’s deputy chief executive, Elaine Taylor, had pledged to identify a site for a recycling centre to serve the town in 18 months to two years’ time.

Former mayor of Gillingham Cllr Ian Stewart had already sounded out the developer of a five-acre site on an industrial estate near the town's Park Farm roundabout, he added.

But a county council spokesman said no guarantee had been given to build a household recycling centre in Gillingham.

“A recent North Dorset Property Review found that long-term use of the household recycling centre in Shaftesbury will not be feasible due to its size and the likely future demand,” the spokesman said.

“The report recommends that the councils begins searching for a new site, and this search is likely to take place within the next 18 to 24 months.

“This does not guarantee that a household recycling centre will be built in Gillingham. Final decisions about possible sites and cost will be made by the county council’s cabinet,” he added.