Pressure on a Letchworth tip may mount as a recycling centre in Biggleswade is set to close for at least six months as redevelopments take place.

Work to redevelop the Biggleswade Household Waste Recycling Centre at Bells Brook will start on Monday, August 3.

Councillor Budge Wells, who looks after community services at Central Bedfordshire Council, said: “We appreciate the inconvenience that this will cause but we hope that residents will appreciate the longer term benefits that the redeveloped site will bring in terms of improved safety, better access throughout the tidy tip and the much improved traffic flow.”

When it reopens early next year, the redeveloped tip will have a different layout and a modern split-level design that will allow people to dispose of waste from an elevated platform.

People will also be able to recycle a wider range of materials there.

Neighbouring centres in Herts and Cambs are already overloaded, so Central Beds is urging people to use alternative sites within its area, although the closest are in Ampthill and Dunstable.

For more information about the closure, visit www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/redevelopment.