WASTE and recycling centres in Petersfield, Bordon and Alresford could be binned by Hampshire County Council in an eye-watering bid to plug a £132 million shortfall.

The council has been left with “no choice” but to reduce or change 13 services as it battles with intense financial pressures and ever-reducing government funding.

Adult social care, street lighting and highway maintenance are among the services earmarked for cuts with the council seeking feedback in a public consultation.

The council is looking to shave at least £1.2million from HWRC services with premium booking slots and further restrictions on what waste can be accepted all being suggested in the consultation.

Reducing daily opening times by an hour at every site would save HCC £300,000 a week but the council admits that “targeted site closures” will deliver the biggest saving.

HWRC centres are in four tiers with the smallest and “poorly performing” sites like Alresford and Bishop’s Waltham being in the lowest.

“Operationally challenging” sites like Petersfield, Bordon and Aldershot are in Tier 3 while the Alton and Waterlooville centres are in Tiers 2 and 1, respectively.

Closing the five Tier 4 sites would save £500,000 a year but with an option to maintain the current service off the table, the prospect of saving £1.6million by closing both Tier 3 and 4 sites might be too strong for HCC to ignore.

There is no statute on how close a household should be to a HWRC, while 93 per cent of residents would still have a tip within seven miles of their home if the Tier 3 and 4 centres were closed.

County and district councillors have vowed to fight any plans to close East Hampshire’s tips with EHDC leader Cllr Richard Millard making a commitment at full council.

He said: “I will honour that commitment and having Conservative colleagues in key positions at HCC gives me total confidence that we will succeed.”

“I will use my influence to minimise closures of HWRCs and I strongly believe that East Hampshire should not be one of the areas that sees closures,” added Cllr Robert Mocatta, chairman of the universal services select committee at HCC.

Cllr Russell Oppenheimer added: “As a Cabinet Member at HCC I can assure everyone that I know what it means to people in Petersfield to be able to keep their tip open. I am confident that we will be able to do this.”

A decision is likely this summer with resulting changes being made next year, to give feedback click on the consultation link at www.hants.gov.uk/aboutthecouncil/haveyoursay