The booking system was introduced following demand from the public who were unhappy with 3 hour queues at Bickenhill and is widely used among other councils.

The booking system introduced was calculated on the maximum throughput per day at the site. Therefore the average total capacity per day is 236 vehicles.

The approach we have taken is that all visits to the site have to be pre-booked in. This is to ensure that those customers who have booked into the site, can visit. No flexibility was built in to allow on the spot visits, as this would undermine the booking system and would be unfair to those customers who have booked.

All available bookings per day are utilised and available slots are released on a rolling two week basis.

Each booking slot is for 15 minutes and each car slot is for 7 vehicles. For example on a Monday there would be a total of 210 available slots for cars.

We ask that you do not arrive more than 10 minutes before the allocated slot or 10 minutes after your allocated slot. If an appointment is missed, then unfortunately a new appointment needs to be made.

As the system has only been live for a short period of time, we will be monitoring the situation and where necessary make adjustments to the number of vehicles which can visit per day.

More information about the booking system can be found on our frequently asked questions – https://www.solihull.gov.uk/Resident/Rubbish-recycling/recyclingcentres/HWRC-Booking-FAQ

Kind regards

Waste and recycling team