CONTROVERSIAL plans for a £1m-plus waste dump will be unveiled this week.

Campaigners are outraged because the household waste recycling centre will be on the doorsteps of two schools and the Winsford Neuromuscular Centre - but council bosses say it is necessary.

It would be almost 20 times the size of Winsford's present Household Waste Recycling Centre on Bradford Road. Skip bays in the large, modern 15,000sq m facility, located off Leslie Road, would increase from five to 17.

Dedicated skips and banks would enable residents to recycle items including glass, garden waste, paper, cardboard, cans, batteries, household rubble, oil, plastics, textiles and timber.

The plans will be unveiled in a presentation delivered by landscapers and scientists from Cheshire County Council at Wins-ford Civic Hall on Monday and Tuesday between 2pm and 8pm.

And if Cheshire County Council's own development regulatory committee approves the scheme in the spring, the waste dump could be open by the summer of 2007.

Despite concerns from residents, council bosses say it is needed. Chairwoman of the waste management board Eveleigh Moore Dutton said: 'We are dedicated to increasing the amount of recycling to prevent it going to landfill sites.

'We are investing in improved sites to meet the demand for better recycling facilities. Our new household waste recycling centre in Crewe is an excellent example of the clean, user-friendly facility we wish to provide for Winsford residents.

'The Bradford Road centre, with its cramped conditions, limited recycling facilities and traffic problems, is nearing the end of its life, and this proposed new facility would meet the needs of the local community now and in the future. Recycling figures would undoubtedly rise as residents took advantage of facilities, and the design of the centre should result in less queuing traffic outside the site.'

She said a landscaping scheme would see more than 1,000 trees and shrubs planted as well as a pond and wetland grass area.