A 6,594-name petition and a motion at tonight's Full Council want the Tavistock Road tip kept open past 21 December. Harefield would be the borough's only site.

Councillors will be asked tonight to halt the closure of the borough’s second waste site, after a petition against it gathered 6,594 signatures.

A motion from Councillor Sweeting, printed in the agenda for the Full Council meeting at 7.30pm on Thursday 24 September, says the Tavistock Road civic amenity site is due to shut on 21 December 2026. It calls on the Cabinet to pause that closure and review the decision (motion 8.1, Council agenda, 24 September 2026).

The motion says the site takes around 2,000 visits each weekend and processes some 6,000 tonnes of waste a year. It calls the site Yiewsley; the council’s own listing gives the address as Railway Sidings, Tavistock Road, West Drayton UB7 7QT, on the stretch of road that runs between the two.

If it closes, Harefield becomes the only waste and recycling centre inside the borough, at the far northern end of it.

What the motion asks for

The motion asks the Cabinet to:

  • pause the closure planned for 21 December 2026
  • commission a cost-benefit analysis testing whether closing the site saves money at all, given the likelihood of more fly-tipping
  • publish the full cost of the mitigations, including the pop-up waste collections, and what the trials did to fly-tipping
  • carry out an equalities impact assessment, the motion citing a local survey finding that disabled residents, older residents and those without cars would be worst affected
  • assess the extra pressure on Harefield, which it says is “already under significant strain, with residents left queuing in traffic”
  • publish tonnage figures showing how much Hillingdon waste has actually gone to the Space Waye site in Feltham
  • run a formal consultation on the closure
  • set a date to formally hear the residents’ petitions
  • search for a site in the south of the borough, where the population is highest
  • contact Powerday, which manages the site for the council, about keeping it running

What the council publishes about the site

The council’s own page for the site carries no closure notice. It still lists it as open, and the terms are narrow already (Hillingdon Council):

  • open Saturday and Sunday only, 9am to 4pm, and closed on bank holidays
  • free, for Hillingdon residents with a HillingdonFirst card, or a driving licence and a household bill
  • no vans or commercial vehicles, and no trade waste
  • staff check proof of address in the queue, and anyone without it is asked to leave it

It takes all domestic waste except asbestos, including mattresses, plasterboard, rubble, garden waste, wood and furniture, fridges and televisions.

We looked for the decision to close it. It does not appear in any Cabinet agenda or set of minutes published in 2026, nor on the council’s delegated decisions register or its forward plan. The 21 December date in this article comes from the motion, which is itself a published council paper.

Timeline of key dates for the Tavistock Road waste site: 24 September 2026, motion to Full Council; 10 October, Pop-up Waste Drop at The Closes car park in West Drayton; 7 November, the last published pop-up date; 21 December 2026, the closure date given in the motion. The petition carries 6,594 signatures against a 500-signature threshold.
Graphic by Uxbridge News
Share this chartFacebookWhatsAppX

Harefield, and what an hour and a half in a queue means

Harefield Civic Amenity Site on New Years Green Lane, UB9 6LX, is open every day from 8am to 4pm, with last entry at 3.45pm. The council’s own page warns that queues “can average around an hour and half” at the busiest times, advises avoiding 11am to midday and the final half hour, and says Wednesdays and Thursdays are quieter.

It is also stricter than the weekend site:

  • no pedestrian access at all, so you need a vehicle
  • residents in a van need two forms of ID and are capped at 12 visits a year
  • non-Hillingdon residents pay £11 per car visit

From West Drayton and Yiewsley, Harefield is the length of the borough away.

The third option, Space Waye Reuse and Recycling Centre, is in Feltham, in the borough of Hounslow, and Hillingdon runs it jointly with Hounslow Council. It opens 8am to 3.30pm daily, but a slot must be booked online for Friday, Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays. In other words, the weekend replacement for a weekend-only tip needs booking in advance.

The mitigation: four Saturdays, and a long list of what it will not take

The council’s answer so far is the Pop-up Waste Drop, free, 10am to 2pm, for Hillingdon residents, with no vans or commercial vehicles (Hillingdon Council). Four dates are published:

  • Saturday 26 September: Deane Park car park, Long Drive, South Ruislip HA4 0HS
  • Saturday 10 October: The Closes car park, Church Close, West Drayton UB7 7PY
  • Saturday 24 October: Brookside Open Space car park, Brookside Road, Hayes UB4 0PL
  • Saturday 7 November: Haste Hill car park, The Drive, Northwood HA6 1HN

It takes bulky waste, furniture, mattresses, bagged carpet, small electricals, scrap metal, old tools and garden furniture. It does not take general household rubbish, dry mixed recycling, garden waste, hazardous waste, car parts or tyres, pressurised containers or business waste. Nothing on that list is published beyond 7 November.

What 6,594 signatures actually gets you

Under the council’s petition scheme, a borough-wide petition needs 500 valid signatures from Hillingdon residents to clear the threshold. Above that number, the published outcomes are the same whether a petition carries 500 names or 6,594 (Hillingdon Council):

  • a response from the relevant Cabinet Member, normally within 20 working days
  • or consideration as part of a consultation process

There is no signature count that triggers a debate, and the scheme states that decisions made under it are final, with no appeal. That is why the motion asks separately for a date to hear the petitions. We set out how the thresholds work in our guide to Hillingdon petition thresholds.

The rest of tonight’s agenda

Two other motions are down for debate.

The first concerns the members’ code of conduct, adopted on 5 July 2012. The motion says it has not been substantively reviewed since, and that it contains no explicit provision on racist or sexist conduct or on conduct on social media. It asks the Monitoring Officer to report to the Standards Committee within two months.

The second asks the Cabinet to pause backdated rent increases on council-owned shopping parades. The motion says those increases have exceeded 100%, because rent reviews due one to four years ago were never carried out and are now being applied retrospectively.

Waste comes up again in public question time. A Northwood resident asks why the non-residents’ barriers at Harefield are broken and how much income the borough is losing while they are out of use, and why magazines, paper and textiles are no longer recycled there. The council’s own page for the site still lists cardboard and paper, including books, and textiles among the items it accepts.

What it means for you

If you use the Tavistock Road site, use it while the council’s page still says it is open, at weekends between 9am and 4pm. Nothing published by the council tells residents it is closing, and no consultation has been run.

If it does shut on 21 December, plan around the queue rather than the distance: Harefield’s own page tells you Wednesday and Thursday are the quiet days and that the last half hour is not. For a weekend trip, Space Waye in Feltham will need a booking.

The nearest pop-up collection to the affected area is Saturday 10 October at The Closes car park in West Drayton, and it will not take your general rubbish, recycling or garden waste.

Tonight’s meeting is at the Council Chamber, Civic Centre, High Street, Uxbridge UB8 1UW, from 7.30pm. It is open to the public and broadcast live on the council’s YouTube channel.

Fly-tipping enforcement, which the motion argues would get more expensive if the site shuts, is covered in our report on the first vehicle crushed in Hillingdon. Bin collection days for your street are on our Uxbridge bin collection days page.

Sources