A LEADING Government minister has criticised Somerset Waste Partnership for introducing charges at recycling centres, including one in Dulverton.

Community Secretary Eric Pickles said the £2 per-visit charge would be "utterly counterproductive" and would lead to more money being spent cleaning up fly-tipping.

He made his comments in a national newspaper this week as the charges at four recycling centres in Somerset came into force.

All four - Dulverton, Crewkerne, Coleford and Middlezoy - had been threatened with closure as part of a £1.9 million savings package demanded by Somerset County Council.

The waste partnership, which oversees all waste collection and recycling in the county on behalf of Somerset's six local authorities, said the charges were being trialed in direct response to feedback from the communities affected.

As well as charging £2 to use Dulverton's recycling centre, the partnership has also brought in reduced opening hours at all of the county's waste and recycling sites and introduced a raft of other charges.

All sites are now closed for two days each week, with opening hours cut from 56 in winter and 70 in summer to 40 hours year-round, with a staggered rota so not all locations are closed on the same day.

In West Somerset, all three sites are open from 8am to 7pm on Mondays, Minehead is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, while Dulverton and Williton are open from 8am to 4pm on both days and closed on Thursdays and Fridays when Minehead is open, again from 8am to 4pm.

All three sites are open from 8am to 4pm on Saturdays and from 8am to 1pm on Sundays.

Charges for leaving gas bottles now range from £6 to £35, car tyres are £3.30 to £4.20 and £45.60 for "general commercial" tyres.

Charges of between £14.50 and £116 are also now levied for different loads of soil or rubble.

But Mr Pickles said charging to use waste sites would do little more than create "perverse incentives" for fly-tipping.

He said people already paid Council Tax for local services and said the Government would not allow "municipal bureaucrats to introduce backdoor bin charges for the collection or disposal of normal household waste".

Steve Read, the waste partnership's managing director, said the new charges were not illegal and were in the "spirit of localism".

"The charging was in response to what the community asked us to look at in preference to closing the centres," he said.