Senior councillors have backed plans to scrap Pembrokeshire’s waste and recycling centre booking system and replace it with numberplate recognition.

At its October 5 meeting, Pembrokeshire County Council’s Cabinet backed plans to remove bookings from all six waste and recycling centres and introduce automatic numberplate recognition and resident vehicle registration.

The council runs centres at Waterloo in Pembroke Dock, Hermon, St Davids, Winsel in Haverfordwest, Crane Cross near Saundersfoot and Manorowen near Fishguard.

The current booking system was introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Presenting a report to members, residents’ services cabinet member, Cllr Rhys Sinnett, called the plan “a significant and much-needed modernisation of services”.

The report said: “The proposed approach will remove the requirement for residents to pre-book visits whilst maintaining resident-only access, restricting access by third-party waste contractors depositing commercial waste, and ensuring the council retains appropriate management and oversight of site usage.

“The implementation of the removal of the booking system is judged to be more complex at some sites and, as such, the switch to the introduction of ANPR will be delivered through a phased implementation programme.”

Members heard the changes would be introduced in two phases.

The first phase would cover Waterloo, Hermon and St Davids, with the remaining three sites in the second phase.

The report said: “While there are benefits to the booking system there is recognition that some members of the public find this system challenging and inflexible.”

“The objective is not simply to remove an existing control mechanism, but to replace it with a more flexible and customer-focused approach that maintains the ability to manage demand, deter misuse and support safe site operations.”

It went on to say that while “the majority of sites are not expected to require significant modification, some of the more complex locations may necessitate substantial reconfiguration to accommodate the proposed arrangements, resulting in additional costs”.

The plan is expected to cost £340,000 in capital spending and £67,000 a year in running costs.

However, that does not include “any potential infrastructure works identified in Phase 2,” a provisional allowance of £80,000 per site included for Phase 1 and £200,000 per site within Phase 2.

The report added: “Across the programme, this provides a maximum contingency provision of up to £1.2m for the whole project.”

The report said the fully integrated system would take at least 12 months to deliver.

Council leader, Cllr Tessa Hodgson, said the proposals were “really welcome” and the improvements were, “a priority for this administration”.

Members unanimously backed the changes.

Recently, county councillor for Saundersfoot’s south ward, Cllr Chris Williams said that he believed that plans to dismantle the booking system for waste and recycling centres across Pembrokeshire, would be a ‘positive step’ forward.

He stated: “Since the introduction of the booking system, I have received reports of black bags, household waste and other items being abandoned at various locations.

“If making it easier for residents to use our recycling centres helps reduce fly-tipping, then that can only be good news for Pembrokeshire.”