Invercargill City Council’s Infrastructure and Services Committee will, on Monday, consider a proposal to close the Bluff Transfer Station.

If approved, the closure proposal will go out for public consultation as part of the Annual Plan 2019-2020. This will take place in early 2019, and the Annual Plan is expected to take effect in July 2019.

The proposal will be considered in the Public Excluded section of Monday’s Committee meeting, because there are matters of commercial sensitivity included in the report.

Drainage and Waste Manager Malcolm Loan has raised the proposal following continued low usage of the Bluff Transfer Station, and need for significant capital expenditure to upgrade equipment at the plant.

At present, the Bluff Transfer Station is open for 11.5 hours per week, and the contractor provides a staff member who is on site for those 11.5 hours. It is open about 254 days a year, and is closed on public holidays.

There have been approximately 70 customers at the Bluff Transfer Station per month during the past three years – about 840 transactions per year. This means that user charges only cover about 12 per cent of the operating costs. This is before any further expenditure on upgrading equipment.

Users of the Invercargill Transfer Station therefore cover the remaining 88 per cent of the cost of running the Bluff Transfer Station.

If the proposal is approved, this will save Council about $100,000 per year.

About 1,000 Bluff properties also receive WasteNet’s red and yellow bin roadside collection service. No changes to this service are proposed.