RUBBISH and refuse continues to pile, blighting a Herefordshire street.

Last week, people living in and around the Drapers Lane area of Leominster received a letter from Charlotte Bevan, the waste and recycling officer of Herefordshire Council, after significant numbers of rubbish and recycling bags were repeatedly seen left on the street days before they were set to be collected.

The letter reminded locals that their collection day is a Wednesday and that refuse should not be presented for collection earlier than Tuesday evening, but its suggestions for fixing the problem stopped there.

(Image: Rob Davies)

The issue started in early May, when the litter bin at the top of Drapers Lane was removed ahead of the May Fair and the improvement works on Corn Square and the High Street. This litter bin was already prone to overflowing, but since its uprooting the problem has been exacerbated exponentially, with rubbish bags piling up and fly tipping becoming commonplace around the former litter bins spot.

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What are your thoughts?

You can send a letter to the editor to have your say by clicking here.

Letters should not exceed 250 words and local issues take precedence.

I have been monitoring the problem since it began, and it seems to me that no solid solution has been proposed beyond simply telling locals not to leave their rubbish out prematurely. In my opinion, this is simply not enough. 

Drapers lane is arguably Leominster’s nicest street, a lovely pedestrian-friendly alleyway full of independent shops and beautiful buildings. With customers sitting outside Drapers Lane Deli and the Press Rooms, trinkets and oddities on display on stalls outside Drapers Lane Antiques as well as the general hubbub of shoppers, on a good day the lane has an atmosphere that is really quite magical. With the rest of the town currently being torn to pieces by roadworks, the traders of Drapers Lane have been working hard to keep their street alive and beautiful, but the constant mass of unpleasant rubbish that has made its home at the top of the lane serves as an unpleasant reminder of the shoddy state that the town is in at the moment.

Real action needs to be taken, a letter simply is not enough. Any visitors to Leominster over this summer are bound to be sorely disappointed by the sight of it all, let them at least have pleasant memories of Drapers Lane.