A PLANNED recycling centre near Chipping Norton could be scrapped after the falling price of recyclable waste made it “unviable”.

West Oxfordshire District Council planned to convert its former Greystones depot, off the A361 south of the town, into the recycling centre.

The plan was drawn up after the closure of Dean Pit, near Chadlington, by Oxford-shire County Council as part of a cost-cutting programme in September 2011.

But the district council says a fall in the prices being paid for recyclable materials means the centre would run at a loss of £43,000-a-year.

The cabinet member for resources, Simon Hoare, said: “One of our aims as a local authority is to be recognised as financially stable and economically efficient.

“In order to meet that aspiration – from which everything else follows, including maintenance of free car parking and grants to the voluntary sector – in my personal judgment it would be perverse and folly to progress with something which did not have a business case.

“With the huge variation in the market price, we’re in real danger of effectively signing a blank cheque, the level of which we know is about £40,000 next year but after that we haven’t got a clue.

“I think it would be irresponsible and unfair to taxpayers to progress with a scheme which could impact on other services.”

He added: “We were stepping into a hole created by the county council, for which we have no statutory responsibility. We were trying to do our best.”

Charlbury councillor Liz Leffman, who campaigned for the new centre, said: “It’s extremely disappointing. I just can’t believe we are where we are, when we had planning permission granted last November.

“It is a huge, huge hole for the people of Charlbury and Chipping Norton not to have this recycling facility.”

She said she would now petition the county council to reopen Dean Pit.

County Hall is spending £5,000-a-year to maintain the licence for Dean Pit and meet its “ongoing legal obligation to look after the landfill site”, a spokesman said.

The district council decided to convert Greystones in February last year and set aside £190,000 for the project.

But the scheme was delayed as the council negotiated to purchase a strip of land, owned by Chipping Norton Town Council, needed to improve access.

The district council now estimates income from the sale of recyclable material, forecast to be £88,940-a-year in 2012, would be £53,818, while estimates of running costs rose from a cost of £14,000-a-year in January last year to £19,000-a-year now.

When it gave the go-ahead, the council was predicting a profit of £742 a year but it now expects a loss of £42,740.

The council’s cabinet will meet to discuss the project today at its Woodgreen offices in Witney at 2pm.