Trader tackles bins after clearing rubbish... again!

Nick Wells, whose Sackville Road shoeshop, C Wells and Sons, is one of the town's oldest family businesses, is regularly forced to clean up other people's rubbish.

As reported in the Observer last month, six wheelie bins, belonging to Wickham Avenue, have til now been kept outside Mr Wells' house on Cornwall Road.

Mr Wells, and nearby trader Steve Lawrence, who runs Steptoes, Wickham Avenue, both claim the bins regularly overflow, partly because they are used as a dumping ground by the public.

"It all blows up against my house," said Mr Wells. "And I spend about twenty-five minutes clearing up someone else's waste. They are nothing to do with Cornwall Road."

After the Observer first carried a story about the bins, Mr Wells said, other traders and residents came forward to voice support.

He has contacted Rother District Council, who say they are "aware of the problem", but after another stint of cleaning on Sunday, decided to take matters into his own hands and drag the bins onto Wickham Avenue.

"Enough's enough," he said. "They are nothing to do with Cornwall Road and they are on private property. I've just put them where they should be.

"At the end of the day all I'm asking is that the streets are clean and tidy."

Rother District Council head of amenities Madeleine Gorman said the council understood Mr Wells' concerns.

She added: "We are conducting weekly sites visits and working with the flats' landlords to find a solution as to where they can place their bins."