Cathays rubbish blunder: 'It's like living in a slum'

Residents in the heart of Cardiff were dismayed after extra rubbish left out by students was not collected. The additional collection dates for students in Cathays encouraged households to leave out extra rubbish on three Saturdays in June to help them clear out their rented properties for the summer. But 13 roads with piles of rubbish were missed in the Saturday collections because some houses had been given fixed penalty notices (part of the council's recent zero tolerance policy in the area), leaving one resident to describe the state of the area as 'like living in a slum'. Speaking at last night's partnerships and communities together meeting (pact), the resident said the result of built up rubbish meant Cathays had become a disgraceful place to live. She said: "It's absolutely stinking. Torquay has seagull proof bags – why can't we have them? "It's like living in a slum and just disgusting. It's been like this for years now." PC Steph Samuel said: "All the students were encouraged to put their rubbish out for extra collections – but these were pulled and certain streets were not getting done." A Cardiff Council spokesperson said: "Cardiff Council continues to work tirelessly to keep Cathays clean and waste free. The annual "Get it Out" campaign, which is targeted specifically at students, has supported this strategy and provided extra collection days for the tenants as they move out for summer. "13 streets were excluded following the recent serving of a number of Fixed Penalty Notices in these areas, for continued errors in waste collection presentation. Their inclusion in this campaign would have had legal implications upon the enforcement activity undertaken to improve the area. "Education remains a crucial issue, and our officers continue to visit these streets to inform and advise on when and how best to dispose of waste." Chair of the Cathays pact meeting, Richard Brydon, said the confused schedules for refuse collection was, well, rubbish. He said: "Sometimes they come a day early or a day late, the equipment for the on-foot collectors is not suitable and the fact black bags with food in are collected late at night means the seagulls can get at them all day long." A pact priority was set to investigate the possibility of seagull-proof bags and look at the rubbish collection schedules for Cathays. Is rubbish a problem in your area? Do seagulls ruin your street? Leave your comment below or use our Fix My Street page to report it to the council.