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Litter Abatement Order

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tell-me-more | 19:40 Tue 26th Aug 2008 | Law
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My neighbours dump their rubbish outside my home. The Local Authority is not sorting the problem, so can I get a Litter Abatement Order against the council?

I can't get it against the people, because it's not always the same ones, and I don't know exactly who it is.
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Does the council clear it up, or do you have to?

If the litter on your property, or on council property?

When is this happening?
Question Author
Hi Ethel, thanks for your prompt response.

The council has sent me 4 almost identical letters in three years telling me to leave my rubbish and refuse by my own property, not in a pile. I have done this, but everyone else continues to pile their sacks, and lose rubbish by the tree outside my home. I have made this point each time the council has written to me, and urged them to stop creating waste by just pressing print every year, and actually do something about the problem.

They wouldn't accept my verbal assurance that they could come here any Monday and find the same situation, so I've sent them photographs with chicken carcasses, tuna cans, ironing boards, all sorts outside.

They supposedly monitored the street for several days, and found nothing, but the period they monitored was precisely the 6 days when there is not a problem, which I had previously told them. The only day they didn't monitor was the day before collections.

The council collects most of the litter every Monday morning, but it's still an eyesore every Sunday, some Saturdays, and sometimes afterwards when there are chicken carcasses and tuna tins etc. in our garden and alleyway.

The litter is in the street outside my house, which I believe is council property (a residential street).

It has happened every week for three years on the weekend before collections on Monday mornings.
So once a week your neighbours put all their rubbish in one place for the dustmen to collect.

Now, I have exactly the same thing where I live, but it is the dustmen that do it in the early hours two or three hours before the dustcart arrives to pick it all up.

Have the written to you personally three times in four years, accusing you of littering the street, or is this a general letter sent to all householders?
Question Author
It is a general letter to all those in the area.
It sounds like what I get here

We have had a number of letters (the whole close has) to let us know it is against their bye laws

I know that our council can, and now do, come and rummage through the rubbish to find out who it belongs to from, say, an envelope inside the bin bag and they then issue a �50 on the spot fine.

It is annoying when others think the street is their dustbin
So really several neighbours are clumping all their rubbish together against a tree which just happens to be outside your house, in preparation for the dustmen.

I assume all the rubbish, or 99% of it, is collected by the dustmen on Monday morning, which is all a Litter Abatement Order would do.

However, such an Order is relatively cheap, so if you are determined to go down that route it is an option.

A good guide here:
http://www.crewe-nantwich.gov.uk/planning_and_ environment/streetwise_services/litter_and_the _law.aspx
Question Author
I'm not determined to go down the Litter Abatement Order route. In fact, I don't think it will help.

The cats etc. drag chicken carcasses, tuna cans and the like from the pile and into our garden, and the street. It's a mess, an eyesore, a disturbance in the summer at night when the windows are open, and not very hygienic.

I don't object to people leaving their sacks outside my house at collection time, but the council has asked them not to do even that. They say it's easier for them to have them left outside every house.

I object to people dumping their rubbish outside my home over the weekend, when the collection isn't until monday morning. The pile is about 3ft from our living room window. In the summer it smells, I imagine it attracts rats, it can attract 3 or 4 cats at a time during the night. It gives the area a run-down look. People feel they can park their cars on the pavement there, let their dogs cr4p there, leave their cigarette butts there, leave their wardrobes there, washing machines there, whatever it is that week. If you're suggesting it's nimbyism, too right it is. If it's not my rubbish, it shouldn't be outside my home, unless the council have asked for it to be, and they've asked for the opposite.

What adds insult to injury is that the council wastes money pretending that it's going to take the problem seriously by sending out the same letter each year.
You will probably find that they are not supposed to put their rubbish out until 7am the morning of rubbish collection; we aren't
Not sure if that's any help but there has to be something the council can do to stop this as fines etc

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