The Thompson Nicola Regional District is hoping to have all 10 of its eco-depots open on Sundays for October.

Barriere mayor Ward Stamer brought forward a motion asking the regional district to do so.

“The Louis Creek Eco-Depot is one of the largest – if not the largest – eco-depot that we have in the regional district. We’ve been discussing with staff on some of the options. It’s been about seven years since we looked at the numbers of all our eco-depots; whether we should be increasing or decreasing the hours for summer, winter, those kinds of things.”

Usually the facilities in Logan Lake, Heffley Creek and Louis Creek aren’t open on Sundays after Oct. 1, when they go to winter hours.

Logan Lake mayor Robin Smith says there’s a higher demand this year, in part because of COVID-19.

“Definitely seeing a lot more interest in people having the availability of the eco-depot to drop things off and that sort of thing. It’s been a very popular request on our Facebook page over the last little while. Just people having a lot more time at home and being able to have the opportunity to go through things, and all of that sort of thing. It just sort of compiles.”

And Little Fort area director Bill Kershaw says people with cabins are “about a month behind” for doing work on their seasonal properties, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Tourism and everything was really late getting started because of the fact that people didn’t realize they were going to be going to their cabins or going out until we went into phase two and phase three when it was allowed,” Kershaw says.

“It’s just a convenience; that’s when they go back home, is on the Sundays.”

The TNRD expects it would cost $7,300 to open those three facilities for an extra four days each.