PEOPLE planning to visit Whitchurch's household recycling centre this weekend are being advised to expect long queues, and to avoid visiting all together if possible.

Shropshire's five recycling centres reopened in earlier in May, but have been getting increasingly busy, with queues of up to two hours.

Lezley Picton, Shropshire Council's Cabinet member for culture, leisure, waste and communications, asked people to consider if a trip to the tip was necessary or not.

She said: "New rules are now in place at the recycling centres to ensure that staff and visitors follow the social distancing guidance, and this means that there are likely to be queues which could be lengthy at times.

"The centres have been getting increasingly busy this week, with queues of up to two hours to gain access on occasion.

"So, we're asking everyone to please consider if you really need to make the visit and, if you do, be prepared to potentially have a long wait.

"Remember that our team will not be able to assist you unloading your vehicle on site.

"Depending on the length of the queue, marshals will begin to turn away vehicles from the queue if we think you won't gain entry to the sites before 5pm.

"Please remember the marshals will only ask you not to join the queue if you won't be able to get into the site before it closes, and they don't want you to waste your time.

"Our waste collection and recycling collection services continue to operate as normal, so we ask people to continue putting out their waste and recycling for collection, and to hold onto any other waste it at all possible.

"And for those that do need to visit the centres, we'd like to thank them for their patience and understanding."