Council's reply

LAST week's story covering Portishead and North Weston Town Council's demands to re-open the town's civic amenity site has prompted a response by North Somerset Council executive member for environment and community Councillor Deborah Yamanaka.In response to the article in last week's Times on Black Rock Household Recycling Centre, I too hope that the site can be re-opened to the public soon.It is not necessarily true, as your articles state, that the site will not re-open until the quarry face work is complete.It should be possible to open the site partially while the work takes place, if a traffic management scheme can be agreed with the police.The reason for closure was in fact due to a number of traffic incidents while vehicles were queuing to use the partially opened site in April.I hope that soon, after consultation with the police, North Somerset Council will be able to give a date when partial re-opening can take place.To answer another criticism, it was not possible in April to engage contractors to carry out the work on the quarry face because the nature and extent of the work needed was not known at the time.Nobody was allowed on the rock face because of the reports of peregrine falcons. It was only after English nature had completed surveys to establish that neither falcons nor bats were present, that experts could specify the work needed on the quarry face.As your article rightly states, the process of engaging a contractor to carry out the work on the quarry face is now taking place.Deborah Yamanaka - Executive member for Environment and Community