Day-to-day management and running of Staffordshire's Household Waste Recycling Centres is being brought back in-house.

It will remain business as usual for the public at all of Staffordshire County Council's recycling centres when the current outsourced contract expires at the end of March next year.

Consideration had been given to appointing another third-party contractor to carry on providing the service.

Mark Deaville, Staffordshire County Council's Cabinet member for Commercial, said: "There have been significant changes in private sector involvement in the household waste recycling market in recent years, with fewer companies wanting the work and those that do are quoting higher prices.

"If we had put the contract out to tender we do not believe that there would be enough competition in the market for the county council to negotiate a deal that was good financially and also provided the flexibility to respond to changing environmental, recycling and climate change agendas in the next decade.

"Therefore, we believe resuming the management and day-to-day running of our sites is the best option to ensure we maintain the best service for residents, be sustainable and provide value for money."

The county council has 14 Household Waste Recycling Centres across Staffordshire, including one in Leek.

Currently accepting around 66,000 tonnes of waste per annum across 42 types of material, the recycling centres are visited approximately 1.6 million times a year by residents and some 20,000 times by traders.

The recycling service is currently managed by Amey, which stepped in last year after Staffordshire County Council agreed that the-then operator FCC could leave its contract early.

Following examination of the options by an all-party scrutiny committee last year, the county council commissioned an independent report by PwC UK to consider the situation in the private market and assess the authority's options.

Now the Cabinet has taken the decision. Mark Deaville said: "We have been watching closely what is happening in the industry as we are preoccupied by providing the best service for residents while maintaining value for money.

"Residents will notice no difference when the changeover happens in 2022, although we do have ambitious plans to improve facilities and encourage more sophisticated recycling methods.

"This option will allow us to respond to changing demand, a growing population and the council's commitment to reduce the county's carbon footprint to net zero by 2050."