Protests force council to re-open recycling amenity

Campaigners in Derry have had a victory in forcing the City Council to agree to re-open the recycling and amenity centres closed as part of a cost-cutting exercise.

Goretti Horgan was a spokesperson for the Amenities Action campaign group established by the local community in the Bogside and Brandywell area. She told Socialist Worker,  “the closure of the amenity sites was a disaster. The Council having to spend even more money collecting waste that householders used to bring to the site. We predicted that this is what would happen, but the Councillors would not listen until we started to protest outside every one of their meetings”

“We told them that any money the Council would save in the next year or two from closing the sites would be lost several times over when the EU starts to fine us for sending too much of our rubbish to landfill. That is why we were determined to reverse these cuts.

“However, we were told by Sinn Féin councillors – in the most straightforward way – that we just had to accept the cuts and needed to get used to them because there would be more coming down the line next year.

“They are trying to cut services at the same time as City of Derry airport is costing the rates payers £3.5 million every year just to keep Ryanair happy. If the Council told Michael O’Leary that we are no longer going to subsidise his airline, we could have more services for local communities instead of contributing to O’Leary’s millions.

“This is an important victory: we have shown that protest works, that it is worth standing up for working class communities and we have made it clear that they will not get away with imposing cuts on services next year.”