Gympie council wants to increase dump open hours

The Gympie council will investigate a plan to reverse controversial changes brought in for rubbish dumps across the region three years ago.

Open hours at Gympie’s small regional dumps could be doubled under a proposal to replace on-site staff with automatic gates currently being explored by Gympie Regional Council.

Councillors were told at Wednesday’s workshop open hours at the Gunalda, Widgee, Rainbow Beach, Kilkivan and Goomeri dumps could be greatly expanded by installing automatic boom gates at their entrances.

These dumps were among those to have their hours dramatically slashed in 2017 to cut costs.

Sustainability director Adrian Burns said a dump like Gunalda could be opened for “50-60 hours per week”, a huge jump on the 20 hours per week it is open now.

“We might be doubling … the availability of the services to the community,” Mr Burns said.

This meant the council would be giving the regional areas better service, “something we can’t afford to do at the moment”.

Deputy Mayor Hilary Smerdon.

The gates would likely be operated by keypad with a code tied to rates notices or vehicle registration.

CCTV would be used to monitor illegal dumping.

Installation of the gates would not start until mid-next year if the proposal is ultimately given the green light by the council, and would cost more than $670,000.

Mr Burns said the council would however save money on the system after five years.

Gympie Regional Council now spends more than $340,000 each year on gatekeeping and supervisory staff at the five smaller dumps.

Automated gates are already being used by a number of Queensland councils including Toowoomba and South Burnett.

Deputy Mayor Hilary Smerdon asked that the council to explore this as an option for Gympie following an inter-council meeting in 2018.

“ A representative from Toowoomba said the only way to handle these smaller sites is to automate them,” Mr Smerdon said.