Volunteers remove 500 bags of rubbish from Westcliff alleyways (From Southend Standard)

Volunteers remove 500 bags of rubbish from Westcliff alleyways

2:00pm Thursday 21st February 2013 in Echo News By David Trayner

Fredrick Baizley, Dave Batter, Peter Sanchi and David Webb, in one the allwyways that they have almost finished clearing up between Ramuz Drive and Beedell Avenue

ROGUE landlords and transient tenants are clogging up Westcliff’s myriad of alleyways, leaving volunteers to clear more than 100 bags of rubbish a month.

Flytipped mattresses, car parts and tables, mean dog walkers cannot use six walk-throughs in Westborough Ward, the water board cannot reach drains and residents cannot exit their homes from the rear.

Property owners, many of them landlords, are failing to fulfil their responsibility to keep these alleyways clear, leaving Westborough Community Association to collect more than 500 bags of rubbish, over 15 separate day blitzes, since September.

Chairman David Webb said: “Tenants keep dumping rubbish in the alleyways when they are moving out. You can’t get to the back of your property.

“It attracts rats and foxes.

“Anglia Water couldn’t get to a manhole cover down one alleyway.

“And if there was a fire at the front of your property, you couldn’t escape out the back.”

Only one of the problem alleyways has so far been adopted by Southend Council, so the owners of properties backing onto them have responsibility to clear them.

The area has a high proportion of rented properties and Mr Webb along with ward councillors have accused short-term tenants of dumping bulky items over their back fence, rather than taking them to the tip or paying the council to collect them.