An Oxenhope man is threatening to stop paying his council tax after council dustmen repeatedly failed to collect his rubbish.

Ken Martean, of Station Road, has lived at his current Oxenhope address since last September, and since then has counted seven occasions when his rubbish has been missed.

Mr Martean has contacted Bradford council on each occasion and they have duly come out to collect it. Despite this his experiences have left Mr Martean fuming.

"It's damn well disgusting. It's costing me a lot of money. I'm now mindful to stop paying my rates" he says.

Mr Martean adds that Worth Valley ward councillor Kris Hopkins has been trying to help him get Bradford council to do their bit, but so far to no avail. He says that on one occasion Cllr Hopkins took the rubbish away himself.

"That's how embarrassing it is" he adds.

Mr Martean says that after the last time it happened he contacted Bradford council, who were very apologetic and assured him it would not happen again.

He says: "I put the rubbish out on Wednesday night and it was still there when I came home. It's a health hazard. When I return home invariably a dog has been through it and there's nappies and things all over the place."

Mr Martean says he does not understand how such sloppy work can go on uncorrected. He says: "If I employed people like that who are so inept I would sack them."

A Bradford council cleansing department spokesman says the reason Mr Martean has had difficulties getting his rubbish collected is because his bungalow is one of a group of new properties which has not been included on a regular round.

The spokesman adds: "It's now part of a regular round, but was unfortunately missed last week because of staff shortages. The rubbish was collected the next day and we will make every effort to ensure it is collected on time in future."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.