RESIDENTS in Mill Lane, Walton are well used to stepping into the road to avoid the bags of waste spilling out on to the pavement outside the derelict council property where they have been dumped.

More often than not gulls peck the bags open and residents are then treated to a rich assortment of kitchen waste, plastic bottles and disposable nappies littering the pavement and sometimes blowing into their gardens.

This is annoying enough, but made more so by the fact that some of the fly-tippers I have spoken to have claimed they are told by council employees to leave their rubbish in this spot if, for some reason, it is not collected.

That makes it all the more gratifying when someone tries to do something about it.

May I, therefore thank the Veolia employee who, though off duty, comes along from time to time to re-bag the waste, sweep up, and stack the bags so that they don’t obstruct the pavement quite so badly. It’s good to know that some people care enough about about public health to do something about the problem even if the council do not.

The picture shows the situation on Saturday. It was a relatively “good” day, because the Veolia man had cleared up for us on Thursday, and left the pavement fairly clear.

About twice this number of bags are usually collected each Monday when the bin lorry comes, but some bags start appearing as soon as noon on Monday and are then, inevitably, hanging round for a full week before being collected.

I can’t help feeling that the problem would be reduced if something was done about the derelict property; people would be less inclined to dump rubbish outside a property that was smartened up and in use.

Andrew Brooke

Alfred Terrace, Walton

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