WASTE chiefs have binned controversial plans to close Oxford’s Redbridge recycling centre to the public.

The proposal to make the Old Abingdon Road site ‘trade use only’ was unveiled as part of Oxfordshire County Council budget cuts to save £119m over four years.

But after a huge public backlash, the idea, put forward in December, has now been shelved in part.

The council said the site will be open to residents at the weekend and on bank holidays when it reopens after closing for a nine-month refurbishment next year.

An equally controversial plan to stop taking general waste at all but one county tip has also been dropped.

The proposal to close the Redbridge site to the public sparked fears that flytipping would increase in the southern half of the city.

And Kidlington residents felt they would be overrun with traffic if the new dump planned for their village was the only county centre to take rubbish.

Blackbird Leys community leader Gordon Roper welcomed the u-turn, but said the council had not gone far enough.

He said: “People do the gardening and collect rubbish at the weekend and go on Monday and Tuesday to get rid of it. If it is only open at weekends, there will be traffic jams.”

The county proposals, out for consultation, will close four waste recycling sites at Ardley, Dean, Alkerton, and Stanford in the Vale to save about £750,000. A new facility will open in Kidlington in April 2012, and a replacement site will be sought in Banbury.

The Redbridge site will close for refurbishment next summer and reopen in February 2013. The county is planning security at closed tips to stop flytipping.

Oxford City Council has backed the move to open Redbridge to the public.

It had been so concerned by the proposed closure it had been prepared to open its own rubbish dump in the south of the city.

City councillor John Tanner said: “They have relented at the weekend, I now want them to relent in the week as well.

“It is true that Kidlington will be a better, modern site, but it will only serve some of Oxford.”

Ian Hudspeth, the county council’s cabinet member for infrastructure, said the proposals had been changed following the public backlash.

“Basically, we listened to people and we looked into everything. It is in response to those concerns.”

He said opening Redbridge at the weekend would cost more, and savings would have to be found elsewhere in the waste service by 2014.

The plan to only accept rubbish at the Kidlington site had been aimed at reducing landfill, he said.

That has been shelved, due to public concerns, and new ways of reducing landfill will be explored.

Mr Hudspeth said fewer centres, with increased recycling and re-use facilities, could cope with demand as visits had declined over recent years.

He added: “With the added kerbside collections in the city, the Vale and West Oxfordshire, we expect fewer visits.”