Newcastle rubbish: Back lane bollards to be trialled to stop fly-tipping

Some residents have blamed communal bins as the problem

Bollards are being put up in streets in Newcastle's West End to stop fly-tipping and rotting rubbish piling up in back lanes.

Some residents say communal bins are being misused by neighbours, leading to rat problems in the area, which is also used for illegal dumping.

Bollards are now being put up in three streets.

Council leader Nick Forbes, who represents Arthur's Hill, said also residents must take responsibility.

"I've seen people chuck nappies out of back windows into the street," he said.

"That's the kind of behaviour that pulls the area down and makes other people quite rightly really angry about it."

Three of the worst streets will have bollards installed to stop fly-tipping

Jimmy Hutchinson, who runs Hutchinson's Fruit and Vegetable shop in Stanhope Street, said there had been a problem for at least 10 years.

"The back lanes are terrible," he said.

"You get people who just throw the rubbish - they don't come down and put it in the bins, they just throw it over the top of the wall."

The council says it has a daily clean-up squad going around the area

Tay Pitman, a resident and Green Party campaigner, said children could not play in some areas because they were "filthy", highlighting how there was a dead pigeon there earlier.

"There is plenty of litter laying around, fly-tipped rubbish, overflowing bins and unfortunately this has become a normal state of affairs in recent years - ever since the communal bins were introduced," she said.

"We have masks laying on the ground, we have some dining chairs scattered around, the remains of someone's chicken dinner, sanitary towels.

"The rat problem has got much worse."

Chris O'Conner plants flowers to stop rubbish being dumped

Gardener Chris O'Conner had started to plant greenery in back lanes to "try to beautify the area".

"Even just putting them there means there's no physical place to fly-tip now. It's not a solution to the problem, but if we all do it, it is a solution to the problem," he said.

The council will put bollards in some back lanes in three hotspots as part of a 12-month trial to stop vehicles getting through, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

However, bin lorries and bikes will be able to access them.

Labour council leader Mr Forbes said the authority needed to "try something different".

"I remember before the communal bins people had exactly the same gripes about the individual bins because they were all left out in the back lane," he said.

"There were bins set on fire, bins strewn all over the place."

The council says £552,000 in fines have been issued for environmental offences

He said some individual bins would be given but it required residents to "look after them".

"We cannot just rely on the council coming in cleaning up every day because the council just does not have the resources to do that," he added.

"We need residents to work with us."