Residents in one street have been told their bins will not be collected due to parked vehicles blocking access for lorries. A leaflet distributed by Amber Valley Borough Council was posted to residents in Park Street, Ripley, said bin collection crews would return to collect bins on a different day, providing access was not restricted.
Park Street is an access-only road, with numerous signs displaying this fact to motorists, but residents say the route is a popular “rat run”, particularly during school drop-off each morning and the post-work commute in the evening. They say motorists looking to avoid paying to park in the town centre sometimes park on the road, which is a key issue compounding access problems, Derbyshire Live reports.
The narrow street is often crowded with vehicles and larger vehicles can struggle with access, with a particular pinch-point halfway down the route. An elderly resident who has lived in the street for 40 years and did not wish to be named said access issues had been persisting “for ages…for far too long”.
She said: “Children walking to school and people with disabilities have to go in the road to get around parked cars. Everyone has complained about and we now feel our hands are tied.
"We have paid to keep our car in a garage for 40 years just to keep it off the road. It is as bad as I have ever seen it now and it is a danger.
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"People block the pavement and sometimes we can’t get out of our gate. It is getting worse and worse and worse, because everybody has got two cars now instead of one.
“Lots have had wing mirrors taken off, it is such a shame, it would be nice if people stuck to the rules. It is a danger if people can’t get out. They are a law unto themselves.”
A resident who only wished to provide his first name, David, has lived in the street for six years, and said there had never previously been issues with collecting bins - apart from during periods of heavy snow and at times during the pandemic. He said: “Last week they were collected but the week before they said they could not collect the bins and would come back the following day to try again.
“As you will have seen, there are access only signs at both ends. It seems strange that they (Amber Valley Borough Council) have now started having issues when it has never happened before and it has always been like this, it is just laughable.
“Bin collection staff should be taking photos of vehicles which are blocking the road and sending those pictures to Derbyshire police, access is a part of the law. The situation is in the council’s hands too.
"The letter can’t be enforced, just like the access-only signs are not enforced. It is just frustrating. It is no criticism of the bin men at all, who do a fantastic job, but I think they are under pressure to do more and more with less and less crew.”
James Scott, an NHS manager who has lived in the street for 14 years, said emergency vehicles and food delivery vans have always been able to gain access and bin lorries have always found a way to make collections. He said bin lorries would be driven half way down to collect waste from half the properties, and then they would loop around the block to enter the lower half of the street to collect the rest.
Mr Scott said: “There is obviously not much parking so a lot use this street, people use this street as a rat run too and it is too narrow for that. The rat run thing is the big thing.
"When we got the letter we were concerned about it, it was a really hot day and we worried the bins would get very smelly. We pay our council tax and we want our refuse to be collected in a timely manner.”
Chloe Anthony, a horse-riding instructor who has lived in the street for four years, said: “We were told the bin lorries wouldn’t fit and they were refusing to empty the bins.
“The access is bad, sometimes we get blocked in and with big vehicles like we have it is harder to get out. The bin lorries usually just loop around to get each side.”
A resident who did not wish to be named also said the route had become a “rat run” which was proving “dangerous”.
The borough council was approached for comment but had not responded at the time of this article’s publication. In Marlpool, Heanor, last week, residents said they had not had their bins collected for nearly a month - due to supposed access issues caused by parking.
In response, the council said: "There has been a driver shortage recently, specifically over the last two weeks and that has had an effect on certain areas. Regarding the first week, we had access problems which we are addressing currently to ensure this doesn't happen again."
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