Langley recycling centre shuts at 6pm today until spring 2027. Of Slough's other two tips, Burnham is free for Slough residents and open until 6pm, not 4pm.
Langley recycling centre closes at 6pm today, Tuesday 8 September, and will not reopen until spring 2027. Slough Borough Council announced the closure on its own waste pages, describing it as essential maintenance.
That leaves Slough residents with two tips instead of three for roughly the next six months.
The site is on Langley Park Road, SL3 6DD. Despite the Slough postcode and the name, it is a Buckinghamshire Council site: the Office for National Statistics postcode record puts it in the Wexham parish of Buckinghamshire, about half a mile north of Langley High Street and just over the borough boundary. Slough Borough Council lists it anyway, because it is one of the three centres Slough households can use.
Where Slough residents can go instead
- Chalvey household waste recycling centre, White Hart Road, off Spackmans Way, SL1 2SF. This is Slough’s own site, open seven days a week. Last entry is 15 minutes before closing.
- Burnham recycling centre, Crowpiece Lane, SL2 3TG. A Buckinghamshire Council site, about three miles north-west of Slough town centre, open seven days a week with six unloading bays.
Burnham is free for Slough residents, and that is not obvious from anywhere on the Slough council website. Buckinghamshire charges an access fee to anyone who does not live in the county, on a sliding scale from £28.80 for a small car of garden waste to £472.70 for a large van of general waste. Its own fees page carries a single line that exempts us: “If you live in Slough, you do not need to pay the non-Buckinghamshire resident access fee.” Take proof of address, as you would for any recycling centre.
Check the hours before you go, because the council’s page has them wrong
Slough Borough Council’s “find a local waste and recycling centre” page is the page most residents will land on, and its opening times do not match the councils’ own detailed records. We checked all three against source on 8 September.
| Site | Slough's summary page says | The operator's own page says |
|---|---|---|
| Chalvey (Slough Borough Council) | 9am to 5pm, winter only (1 October to 31 March). No summer hours given | 9am to 6pm from 1 April to 30 September, then 9am to 5pm from 1 October |
| Burnham (Buckinghamshire Council) | Monday, Tuesday and Friday to Sunday, 9am to 4pm | Seven days a week, 9am to 6pm |
| Langley (Buckinghamshire Council) | Seven days a week, 9am to 4pm | Seven days a week, 9am to 6pm. No closure notice shown |
Two of those gaps matter this month.
Chalvey is on summer hours until 30 September, so it is open until 6pm, not the 5pm the summary page implies. Slough’s own dedicated Chalvey page gives both sets of hours correctly. Burnham is open two hours later than the summary page says, and on Wednesdays and Thursdays too, which it does not list at all. With Langley shut, Burnham is the site most Langley and Wexham households will fall back on.
Buckinghamshire has published nothing about the closure
The council that runs the site has not said a word about it in public. Its page for Langley recycling centre, checked this morning, still lists normal hours of 9am to 6pm every day, carries no closure notice, and links two live webcams at the site. There is no item about it in Buckinghamshire Council’s news feed either: the most recent entries are a budget consultation published on 7 September and the weekly roadworks list of 4 September.
So the only public notice of a six-month closure at a Buckinghamshire site is a paragraph on a neighbouring council’s website. Neither council has said what the maintenance involves, and neither has put a date on “spring 2027”. We will update this piece when either does.
What it means for you
If you were planning a tip run this week, go to Chalvey or Burnham, and give yourself until 6pm at either rather than the 4pm or 5pm the council’s summary page suggests.
- Take proof of address. Buckinghamshire asks for a driving licence or council tax bill at Burnham. Slough residents do not pay the non-Buckinghamshire access fee, but you need to be able to show where you live.
- DIY waste is charged separately at the Buckinghamshire sites and needs a permit. So does visiting in a van, a truck or a minibus, and so does walking in on foot.
- No business or commercial waste is accepted at Burnham or Langley. Buckinghamshire directs trade waste to its Beaconsfield site.
- The bigger squeeze comes on 1 October, when Chalvey drops back to 9am to 5pm for the winter. From that date Slough’s own site closes an hour earlier and the nearest alternative is three miles out of the borough.
- Do not leave anything at the gates. Buckinghamshire treats waste left outside a closed site as fly-tipping and says it uses CCTV and number plate recognition. Slough Borough Council installed new fly-tipping cameras of its own in July.
Chalvey is not taking fridges or freezers either
There is a second restriction running at the same time, and it is buried on a different council page. Slough Borough Council has temporarily suspended the acceptance of fridges, freezers and fridge freezers at Chalvey. Its bulky waste page says so plainly, and its advice is the same as ours: “Slough residents can use Burnham HRC alternatively.”
The council has not said when that suspension will lift. So for a fridge or a freezer right now, Burnham is the only tip open to Slough residents, and it is the one the council’s summary page tells you shuts at 4pm and is closed on Wednesdays. It is open until 6pm, every day.
A collection is the other option, and the pricing is worth understanding before you book. There is a minimum charge of £54 for any bulky waste collection.
- A single fridge, freezer or fridge freezer is £29.70, but one on its own still costs £54 because of the minimum. Two come to £59.40.
- Other bulky items are £19 each, up to five per collection, and the minimum means one item and two items both cost £54. Three cost £57.
- Households where every occupant is a pensioner or registered disabled get a £10 discount.
In other words, a single-item trip is the worst value there is. Your kerbside collections are unaffected by all of this: those dates are on our Slough bin collection days page.
Sources
- Slough Borough Council, find a local waste and recycling centre for the closure announcement, the 6pm 8 September time, the spring 2027 reopening, the three sites available to Slough residents and the summary opening hours quoted above.
- Slough Borough Council, opening hours for Chalvey Household Waste Recycling Centre for the summer hours of 9am to 6pm from 1 April to 30 September, the winter hours from 1 October and the 15-minute last entry.
- Buckinghamshire Council, Langley recycling centre for the address, the eight unloading spaces and the 9am to 6pm hours still shown with no closure notice on 8 September 2026.
- Buckinghamshire Council, Burnham recycling centre for the seven-day 9am to 6pm hours, the six unloading spaces, the permits and the trade waste rule.
- Buckinghamshire Council, household recycling centre fees for non-Buckinghamshire residents for the Slough exemption and the £28.80 to £472.70 fee range.
- Buckinghamshire Council news checked 8 September 2026, for the absence of any item on the Langley closure.
- Postcodes.io record for SL3 6DD, drawn from ONS postcode data, for the site sitting in Buckinghamshire rather than Slough.
- Slough Borough Council, bulky waste collections for the temporary suspension of fridge and freezer acceptance at the Chalvey HWRC, the advice to use Burnham instead, the £54 minimum charge, the £29.70 fridge rate, the £19 per item rate and the £10 pensioner and disabled discount.
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