EIGHT household waste recycling centres in East Lancashire could be closed to save money.

Four new, larger centres would be built to serve the areas affected.

Those earmarked for the axe are centres in Langho, Padiham, Great Harwood, Burnley, Accrington, Haslingden, Bacup and Colne.

Larger replacements would be built in Burnley, Hyndburn, Rossendale and Pendle.

The proposals follow an 18-month review into the provision of the centres by Lancashire County Council.

It has recommended the closure of 11 sites in total across the county.

East Lancashire is worst affected as the area is said to have more centres than elsewhere.

The moves would save the council £540,000 a year while also bringing in one-off payments of around £1.3million from the sale of closed sites, according to the county council. The review compared the service offered in Lancashire with 17 other county authorities.

A report said it found that the county had the second highest number of household waste recycling centres in the country.

The report said there were 50,000 residents per centre in Lancashire, compared to as many as 140,000 residents per centre in other counties.

Council bosses have recommended running an ‘optimised’ network of 16 sites across the county. These plans would provide 90 per cent of Lancashire’s population with a household waste recycling centre within five miles, which is five per cent less than the current network, according to the report.

However at this stage council bosses are at the planning stage, and may decide not to close any sites, instead ‘rationing’ the centres’ work.

Household waste is disposed of under the multi-billion pound private finance initiative the council has signed with Australian firm Global Renewables, under which hi-tech waste treatment plants are being built at Leyland and Thornton.

At the same time trade waste will be processed by a number of new plants to be built over the next decade.