RECYCLING centres across the Borders are set for longer opening times.

And all of them will remain open during weekends.

From April all seven centres will extend their opening times into the early evenings to better cater for demand.

But the changes will result in each centre closing for at least one day through the week.

Councillor Gordon Edgar, portfolio holder for Roads and Infrastructure, told us: “These changes are based on extensive data gathered by the council including the important opinions of Borderers, alongside the need for the local authority to make savings at an extremely difficult time for public funding.

“While there will be some weekday closures, every facility will be open later in the summer and during weekends, when demand is higher."

From April to September the weekday hours at all recycling centres will be from 10am to 6.45pm.

And they will also be open from 9am to 4.45pm at weekends.

But all sites will shut from 1.15pm to 2pm each day for lunch breaks.

The opening hours will also reduce during the winter months.

Councillor Edgar added: “We will be letting as many people as possible know about these changes before they begin on April 1, and will be asking the public to continue to play their part and use our community recycling centres.

“These facilities are free to access for the public, and using them can help the environment and public funding, with the council spending hundreds of thousands of pounds every year on waste which currently goes to landfill which could be recycled at our community recycling centres.”

To meet the later opening times, each centre will be closed for at least one day during the week - Duns (Thursday), Eshiels (Wednesday), Eyemouth (Tuesday and Friday), Galashiels (Tuesday), Hawick (Wednesday), Kelso (Monday) and Selkirk (Monday and Friday).