Residents and a pub owner are demanding action over a Nottingham street that is suffering due to overflowing bins. People living on Cromwell Street, Radford, say rubbish is being blown onto their front gardens every day from commercial bins placed just off Alfreton Road.
They claim this in turn is attracting rats, a concern shared by Rob Gibson, who runs the Running Horse pub, which is situated next to the bins. "People are dumping rubbish on the street," he told Nottinghamshire Live.
"It's very annoying that there are bins out all the time and they attract fly-tippers. I'm trapped in between food premises. I've been complaining about it for so long."
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Mr Gibson said the build-up of rubbish was "unpassable" at times, and said he would frequently see rats running around it. He believes the city council should be doing more to tackle the offenders.
"People are dumping rubbish 24/7 and they're not getting pursued," he said. "If you have a food premises, you should have to prove that it has a contract for a commercial bin.
"This wouldn't happen outside the council offices. I leave my bar at night and see rats coming out of the rubbish. I've got people coming into my pub that walk up the side street, sometimes it's unpassable."
Amy Cresswell, Giorgia D'Agate, Gemma Warden and Dan Bedwell, all final year Nottingham Trent University students who live opposite the bins, said it was "particularly bad".
"Every week it gets filled up," said Ms Cresswell. "We've only just got rid of the rats. In the summer you could hear them talking to each other.
"The rats aren't too bad at the moment but there was so much poo in the garden in the summer." Mr Bedwell added: "Walking out the house, the smell was so bad. We had to get rid of a dead rat when we moved in.
"There's a lot of students living here and a lot of takeaways. I wouldn't choose to live here again. There definitely needs to be more bins and maybe more cameras."
Ms D'Agate said: "When they get overfilled, the rubbish blows down the street. They seem to do it in the middle of the night. You put the bins out on a Wednesday and people just shove stuff in there."
A resident, who has lived on the road for seven years, said he had "absolutely considered" moving out due to the issue, saying he cleared his front garden of rubbish every day. "It's been going on for two years. I've been complaining about it to the council and nothing gets done," said a resident, who wished to withhold his name.
"I clear it (rubbish) and then tomorrow there will be more back. It's obviously not nice to live here. It's mainly takeaways and commercial waste. It's a student area and they don't have to deal with it for long. If it wasn't then there might be more of a push to get it sorted.
I've absolutely considered leaving, I don't know why I've not."
A Nottingham City Council spokesperson said: “We sympathise with Mr Gibson and have been working with him for a number of months to try to resolve this situation, which is understandably frustrating for his business. There is a wider issue at this end of Alfreton Road with some premises not having access or space at the rear of their property to store commercial bins. Unfortunately, this can attract opportunist fly-tippers who leave waste next to bins on the street.
“Our Community Protection officers continue to work closely with the council’s street cleaning teams and bin crews to tackle this issue. Fly-tipping is a scourge on communities and something we take very seriously – close to 30 fixed-penalty notices have been issued in this area in the past three months. We would be very happy to meet with Mr Gibson again to see what more we can do to help.”
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