Havant litter pickers who 'saved council thousands of pounds' unhappy after waste left abandoned

COMMUNITY litter pickers who did ‘such a thorough job’ when they cleared away years’ worth of waste including an old swimming pool and trampoline were left unhappy when the rubbish wasn’t collected for a week.
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Half a dozen pickers came together to clear rubbish in Dunsbury Way, Leigh Park, following agreement with Havant Borough Council and Norse, which has the authority’s contract for waste collection.

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Residents worked tirelessly for hours on October 18 to clear waste along a footpath by Hermitage Stream before leaving the items on a grass verge to be collected.

Litter collected in Dunsbury Way, Leigh ParkLitter collected in Dunsbury Way, Leigh Park
Litter collected in Dunsbury Way, Leigh Park
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But a row broke out over collection of the waste – before it was finally removed over a week later.

Jason Horton, who was one of the litter pickers, said: ‘We did a great job, clearing years worth of fly-tipping including swimming pools, a discarded trampoline, broken fencing, shopping trolleys, a smashed stereo that was hanging from the branches of a tree, and even a water butt.

‘We dragged and carried this rubbish to the roadside for Norse to collect the next day. This must have saved the council thousands of pounds in rubbish clearance. All they had to do was to collect the rubbish and take it to the dump.

‘A couple of Norse workers did turn up and explained that they'd need a bigger truck to remove the fly-tipping.

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‘They were supposed to come out the following day to clear it. Sadly the simple task of removing rubbish became a battle between the residents, the council and Norse.

‘Apparently, the rubbish was on private land so they were arguing about who should pay to have it removed. The community groups were not concerned about that. We just want to clean up the community.’

Jason said litter ended up being ‘blown’ into neighbouring properties before it was cleared away.

‘Norse would normally come along and take away the rubbish no problem but a few weeks ago they stopped providing us with bags after saying they were not allowed to any more,’ the 49-year-old said.

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‘I understand they probably have different vans for fly-tipping but they could easily have scheduled it rather than leave it on the grass verge for over a week.

‘It took a lot of hassling of the council to get the waste taken away. We're just ordinary people trying to make our community a bit better. We're just not getting the help we need.’

The council now hopes to speed up the process to remove waste.

‘Norse received a request to collect rubbish bags following a community litter pick in Leigh Park,’ a spokeswoman for the authority said

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‘The bags were collected as arranged; however, the community group had undertaken such a thorough job in cleaning up the area they also cleared furniture, fencing and other objects such as shopping trollies that had also been fly-tipped.

‘This required a larger vehicle which returned later in the week to collect. All rubbish has now been cleared.

‘The council is currently working with community litter picking groups and Norse to streamline the process to prevent delays, such as this, in the future.’

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