Christmas Public Service Guide

At your service in any weather

Council offices will be closed only on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, and the weekend of Saturday 27th/Sunday 28th December.

Offices will be open for business as normal on Monday 29th, Tuesday 30th and Wednesday 31st December, and Friday 2nd January:

Register offices: The offices for registering births, marriages and deaths will be open as normal except on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

Cemeteries: Cemeteries will be open to visitors throughout the holiday period.

Libraries: Libraries will be open as normal apart from Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. On Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve they will close at 3pm. (Platt Bridge library will be open 8.30am – 12 noon on 2 January.)

Adult Social Care Services

If you need help over the holiday period, please contact:

• Central Duty Team: closes 5pm on 24 December and re-opens on 29, 30 and 31 December. Then closed until 2 January. Office hours during Christmas and New Year: 8.45am to 5pm – phone 01942 828777. Outside these hours, phone the Emergency Duty Service on 0161 834 2436.
• Community Meals Service – this will continue as normal over the holiday period, including Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
• Home Care Service – service as normal throughout the holiday period. For enquiries, contact your individual service provider.
• Day Centres: All day services (for older people and people with a learning disability, physical disability, or mental ill health) will be closed on bank holidays and will open as normal on other days, except Hindley day centre, which will be open on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and Etherstone, Heath Road and Heathside day centres, which will also be open on Boxing Day and on New Year’s Day.

Recycling information

Real Christmas trees (minus the decorations!) can be put out next to your green wheelie bin.

Alternatively, they can be taken to one of the borough’s household waste recycling centres (except Orrell).

Clean brown corrugated cardboard can also go in your green bin.

Christmas cards can be recycled in the cardboard container at all household waste recycling centres (except Orrell). They can also be taken to Tesco supermarkets, WH Smiths and TK Maxx.

There are changes over Christmas to the fortnightly paper recycling and green waste collections – all households will receive a collection calendar with full details.

Excess paper for recycling is always acceptable in a plastic carrier back placed alongside your usual paper sack (please do NOT use black bags for paper).

Don't forget to recycle all your festive bottles and cans at your local roadside recycling point – there are more than one hundred and fifty borough-wide, within a mile of most homes.

For residents with a brown bin, your empty food and drink tins, glass and plastic bottles can be put out for collection as normal.

All household waste recycling centres will be closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

Refuse Collections

Whatever the weather, we’ll be keeping you informed if services such as refuse collection are threatened by extreme conditions.

Our telephone helpline (01942 404364) will advise residents about changes to our service and our emergency team also updates the council’s website and issues information through the media.

Your black bins will be emptied during the holiday period on the following days.