Rubbish builds up as waste row reaches another week

Residents in the Copeland Road and Edith Terrace areas of West Auckland have been told by Wear Valley District Council to leave their wheelie bins at the end of their street.

But residents are refusing to do so, and they say that the council has failed to keep an earlier promise to collect rubbish from outside their homes and that leaving them at the end of the street restricts access.

The refuse has stood untouched for a month and residents say it is attracting vermin.

"We are not leaving this," said resident Gary Russell, of Copeland Road.

"The council is not providing a full service, they're just providing a part service. We are still having to do the council's refuse collection work.

"If half the street of Copeland Road and Edith Terrace were to put wheelie bins at their nearest gable end, there would be 44 in total, blocking the roads for exit and access. Nobody will compromise."

One resident dumped a number of black bags of rubbish outside the council's headquarters in Crook in protest. West Auckland councillor Margaret Douthwaite said that she was working towards a solution suitable to both parties.

She said: "I'm concerned about the waste that is standing there.

"It's still building up and it's got to be resolved. But I'm quite sure it will be resolved."

More than 29,000 wheelie bins were delivered across the district in March and April and were designed to streamline the area's waste collection service.

A council spokesman said: "If they don't want to put their bins out then that's up to them. The service is there.

"There've been incidents where we haven't been able to get the lorries down the back lane, so we've asked them to leave them on a gable end.

"What they need to do is give us a call. We can go out and assist and the refuse collectors will wheel the bins to their gable end and then wheel them back down again."

Residents wishing to apply for an assisted collection can call (01388) 761617.