Residents' anger as rubbish piles up outside flats

A Peterborough woman has spoken of her anger after rubbish was allowed to pile up outside her flat.

Susan Wallace is one of a number of residents at Stanwick Court off River Lane near the city centre who are having to live with the mountain of waste near her front door.

The recycling at the flats has not been collected for a number of weeks due to ‘issues with how it is being disposed of.’

Mrs Wallace said the issue meant pests were becoming more common in the area – and the smell was becoming unbearable.

She said: “This has been a problem for some time now. The rubbish is just piling up.

"It is now spreading into the car park – we are worried we won’t be able to park our cars soon.”We can’t have the windows open, because flies come in. There are always birds flying around there – we have to wear gloves to drop our rubbish off because of all the pigeon poo.

"It smells awful – it smells like Dogsthorpe tip.

"We want it collected as soon as possible. We were told it would be collected earlier this week, but it is just getting worse.”Benome Marais, a landlord of one of the 28 flats at the site, said: “It becomes total chaos within a few days.

"It has become a regular issue for a long time now.

"We think it is not collected because there is something put in the recycling that shouldn’t be – but no-one is told what that item is. Most of the residents in the flats are not doing anything wrong but are having to suffer.

"It is attracting flies and vermin, and in this heat the stink is absolutely horrendous.”

The property is managed by Accent Nene, and a spokesperson for the group said; “We are aware of the rubbish issues at Stanwick Court, and we are sorry for the upset they are causing our residents. We have taken steps to remove the rubbish on a number of occasions, but have faced some outstanding issues with the way rubbish is being disposed of that we need to get to the bottom of, so we will work closely with our residents to do this.

"In the next couple of weeks, we have a meeting planned with the council to agree a way forward, who we have asked to remove rubbish when we have been made aware it has built up.

“We can understand how unhappy our residents are and we are committed to resolving what is causing the issues. In the meantime, we would ask our residents to continue to report any non-collection of rubbish to the council and Accent, as this has worked well in the past, and to contact Accent whenever they see rubbish being disposed of inappropriately so we can make arrangements for it to be removed.

“We will make sure we keep our residents up to date with what is happening.”

The Peterborough Telegraph has contacted Peterborough City Council about the issue.