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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Aaliyah Rugg

People 'living in squalor' as streets overrun with rats and rubbish

People are "living in squalor" as they say they feel unsafe in their own homes.

Fly-tipping has been a cause for concern for Wavertree residents for "many years". But Roxy Ruane, who moved to Bartlett Street in 2018, said the area is "disgusting".

Buying her first home through the Riverside housing scheme, she said she could not wait to move in and start the next journey of her life. But faced with fly-tipping every day, she told the ECHO the street is now overrun with rats.

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She said: "The first day I moved in, I thought my boyfriend was running up and down the stairs. I shouted to him but he came down and it wasn't him, it was rats. Fly-tipping is the cause.

"I made an effort then to get it sorted because if we are going to live here, we may as well not suffer but I've tried and tried and nothing is improving. The council are now planning on communal bins but these are a replacement of the purple bins but that won't work.

Residents say they are living in 'squalor' due to fly-tipping in Wavertree (Roxy Ruane)

"There's a real community divide and nothing is getting done. You can report it online but it doesn't get removed for a week, it's getting out of hand. People don't want to do certain things because they say someone else will clean it up."

Roxy told the ECHO that she has been contacting local councillors and her MP, as well as contacting neighbours, but it is "falling on deaf ears". She added: "It's awful, we are living in squalor.

"I bought a house thinking I'd have a nice new start, my first house and will have friendly neighbours, a sense of community. But you feel threatened where you live.

"You can't move because of the amount of rubbish and it's not just fly-tipping. It's constant. The more fly-tipping, the more we see rats. Our alleyway is disgusting, there's mattresses, dead animals, it's abominable.

"We are told it's not as bad as other streets, but we don't want it to be. Some neighbours have left because it's that bad. It's sad, it makes you feel deflated.

Fly-tipped waste on Bartlett Rd in Wavertree (Roxy Ruane)

"My message is why? What is the point in making where you live bad? It makes everyone else's lives bad. You're not just harming yourself but also the community you live with. It causes more frustration and anger and there's no reason to."

Confirming the rubbish has since been cleared, A spokesperson for Liverpool City Council said: "The city council takes fly-tipping extremely seriously and we encourage our residents to report any incidents as soon as possible. The council has invested in a new generation of CCTV at a number of hotspots and as a result is currently investigating 40 incidents, of which the offenders in half of these are in the process of being fined.

"In terms of the complaints relating specifically to this neighbourhood in Picton we are assessing a number of options to address the poor waste management issues blighting the area, such as communal euro bins which have proven successful in other communities.

"We also have an enforcement team operating three days a week checking these streets and the wider area and we would again encourage any residents to liaise with our community wardens or report any incidents online."

The ECHO previously reported that Liverpool Council will now consider cases of dumped waste and fly-tipping around the city as "crime scenes" in a major new crackdown. The council has identified the top 10 fly-tip hot spots in the city – and instead of collecting and disposing of the illegally dumped items it has decided to brand each waste case as an environmental crime scene.

Joanne Anderson, Mayor of Liverpool, who is also the Cabinet lead for Waste Management in the city, said: "We’re serious about tackling fly-tipping here in Liverpool and that’s why we have launched our new campaign to ensure we are making our neighbourhoods cleaner.

"Fly-tipping and other types of waste crime ruin our neighbourhoods and environment, and everyone has a responsibility to ensure that waste is disposed of legally and safely. This means making sure that anyone who is handling your waste is licensed to do so, it is also important you know where your waste will end up, otherwise you run the risk of receiving a £400 fine or even in some cases, legal action.

"To support phase two of our campaign, we are in the process of recruiting five new enforcement officers to provide additional support in tackling the issue and significantly reducing the number of fly-tipping incidents in our city."

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