Summers Lane Recycling Centre Traffic Queue and Capacity Problem
Received: 19 May 2026
This is a Freedom of Information Request to Barnet Council.BACKGROUNDEvery weekend there are queues in both directions along Summers Lane approaching the roundabout junction with Porters Way, which is the approach road to the Summers Lane Recycling Centre. It can take 30 mins or more to get into the centre, which is a waste of time for busy residents (who in many cases have spent half an hour or more loading up their vehicle), a deterrent to recycling, and a potential reason for increased fly-tipping. Due to the queues, Summers Lane is effectively impassable to through traffic. No doubt this is highly disruptive to local residents for a large part of these days. The fumes from internal combustion engines are also a source of unnecessary pollution.The population of Barnet has steadily increased during the life of the recycling centre from the low 300k's to over 400k and projected in the council's own local plan to reach over 450k by 2036.The long term trend of population increase is clear. The desire and necessity for residents to recycle more, and also to safely dispose of waste, is clear. The inadequate capacity of Summers Lane recycling centre has been clear for many years.The council could re-introduce a booking system to reduce the size of the queue. However, ultimately the problem is that there is inadequate capacity to handle the waste that people are generating at a time that is convenient for them, i.e. at the weekend when most people are not at work. Re-introduction of a queuing system is likely to result in residents dumping waste, storing it dangerously, or simply putting recyclables in their weekly black bin collection.There is clearly an opportunity to use the existing site more effectively since there are typically multiple car parking spaces that are left empty at the entrance end of the site, and also because currently site operatives do not play a role in directing traffic to empty spaces.In order that it can be understood to what extent the council is aware of the situation, and has formulated a plan to deal with it, please can you provide the following information:INFORMATION REQUESTS1. Do you have any existing figures regarding the amount of residents / population that the Summers Lane recycling centre is expected to support, even if at a crude level of accuracy, e.g. 10,000, 100,000, 1 million?2. For how long has Barnet council been aware of the traffic problems associated with Summers Lane, and the fact that is effectively impassable to traffic for much of the weekend daylight hours?3. What medium term plans exist to address the traffic problems over the next 1-2 months, e.g increasing the vehicles per minute throughput at Summers Lane?4. In particular, have you considered adding a break in the barrier to allow cars carrying smaller recyclable items to turn sooner to use the (usually empty) parking spaces by the clothing / books / TV stores, rather than needlessly wait in line behind cars carrying bulky items that need spaces next to the larger waste containers at the far end?5. In particular, have you considered having site operatives direct cars to empty spaces (which often cannot be seen from the turning point at the far end due to the design of the site)?6. What longer terms plans exist to open one or more new recycling and reuse sites around Barnet to add more capacity and on what dates will they open?
Outcome / Documents
- Response (all information to be supplied) - application/pdf - Download