VILLAGERS who thought they had saved their local tip from closure are fuming after learning it will shut within days.

Campaigners fought a successful campaign to save Todhills household waste recycling centre (HWRC), near Willington, which was facing closure under Durham County Council cost-cutting.

But the council has now revealed the tip will close on May 31 after all – in a complicated legal wrangle over land ownership.

Mary Wilson, chairman of Newfield Community Association which led last year’s campaign, said: “We’re absolutely devastated.

“We fought to keep it open and we thought we had won and that would be the end of it. It’s highly disappointing.”

Last year’s review initially proposed the closure of six of County Durham’s 15 household waste recycling centres run by Premier Waste Management, in which the county council is the majority stakeholder. Four of the under-threat centres, including Todhills, were subsequently saved.

A new five-year contract to run the surviving centres has now been awarded to Derbyshire-based HW Martin Waste Ltd, which will take over on June 1, while Premier entered a Company Voluntary Agreement and is now being wound up by administrators KPMG.

However, it has since emerged that the land on which the Todhills centre sits was sold some years ago to County Durham Waste Management, Premier’s parent company.

The land is therefore being treated as one of Premier’s assets and, as of June 1, the council will be locked out of the site for the foreseeable future.

A ‘For Sale’ sign has now been erected outside the centre.

Alan Patrickson, the council’s head of projects and business services, said he had sympathy with campaigners who had fought to save Todhills.

“I can understand how those people feel about it,” he said.

“Unfortunately it’s got caught up with the ownership issue. The best solution is to find an alternative site and develop it.”

The council was already searching for a long-term replacement for Todhills, for which planning permission has expired, but an alternative site at Roddymoor has been ruled out as being “very contaminated” and not cost-effective, Mr Patrickson said.

Officers are looking to identify and develop another site as soon as possible, he continued, but it is impossible to say how long this would take.