Maggot-infested rubbish piles up in Middleton street

Maggot-infested rubbish is piling up in a street in Middleton where families have been waiting for their bins to be collected for almost a month.

People living in Helston Walk, Middleton have not had their black bins emptied since 8 July 2019, as Leeds City Council binmen missed a scheduled collection on 22 July.

Liz Marsh said the rubbish began piling up during last week’s heatwave, as all the black bins are now full, and it is attracting maggots and mice.

She added: “The council have not given any reason as to why the bins have not been emptied.

“It’s not acceptable to have to put up with this. We all pay our council tax and therefore expect that services like these are kept to a reasonable standard. They need to provide a better service.

“My children play around here and its unhygienic and unhealthy to have all this rubbish mounting up especially when the weather has been so warm.”

A council spokesman has apologised for the missed collection and said another one will be arranged ‘as soon as possible’.

He said: “Our refuse collection teams always endeavour to collect bins on time and when collections are missed, we do everything possible to get to those missed properties and empty the bins within 48 hours.

“While we believe that one missed bin collection is one too many, Leeds City Council’s missed collection rate is 0.08 per cent and we collect around 77,000 bins every working day.”

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/maggot-infested-rubbish-piles-up-16684357

Thanks to Nathan Hyde, of Leeds Live for allowing me to blog this story.  See more at link above.