RESIDENTS in Thornbury say they are fed up with rubbish in their street causing a stink.

Until they contacted the Telegraph & Argus, people living in Woodhall Avenue and Woodhall Road with a cobbled back alley between them had not had their bins emptied for 21 days.

Piles of black big bags torn open by animals, decaying food waste and overflowing bins have been hazardous to their health, they say, including dumped mattresses.

Phone calls were made to ward councillors as well as neighbourhood officers and the Council's refuse department but the bins were still left for days, said Marj Cowling, who has lived in Woodhall Avenue for 15 years.

Retired probation service worker Mrs Cowling, 55, said she had taken to the street with her own litter picker to try to clean up but it was too much of a task.

"The problem is that the cobbled street is unadopted, even though it has street lights, for some reason or other the bins have not been touched," she said.

"It's happened before and they give excuses of not having enough wagons or running out of time but they manage to do the other streets nearby. I pay my council tax as well. It's disgusting the state it's got in to. It's dangerous."

Many of the houses are rented and Mrs Cowling has tried to encourage tenants to take pride in their street and get rid of their rubbish appropriately.

She said: "The problem is, if it looks a mess already it'll just get worse because there's no pride. I've tried. I've even been out with my own litter picker.

"Somehow we need to get people to understand how to put out their rubbish properly, the landlords need to help too. it's not just usual waste its things like mattresses and other bigger items that need to be reported to the council to get rid off or taken to the local tip."

Councillor Mohammed Shafiq (Lab, Bradford Moor) has been to meet worried residents and said he will be asking questions of the council why the bins were not been emptied for so long.

"There might have been some disruption from the snow, I don't know but I'll find out. If there's a problem with cars making it difficult for the wagon to get through the council wardens who patrol the area need to be on the lookout but they can't be there all the time.

"Bradford East neighbourhood officers have also tried to get residents involved in litter picking but these attempts so far have not been fruitful and not had a positive result."

After the T&A contacted Bradford Council, the bins were emptied yesterday.

MrsCowling said: "Thanks to the T&A, the bins have been seen to but there's still mattresses and other waste piled up in the street."

A Council spokesman said: "Snow and ice caused significant disruption to collections across the district.

"When this occurs we will always try to return and clear missed bins as conditions allow. We tried to collect the bins from this street on Saturday but were unable to gain access due to parked cars.

"A crew has been out this morning to clear away the missed bins and get the collections back to normal."

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