A mountain of bottles was dumped just feet from bottle banks in Mirfield town centre.

The unsightly stack of empties – some still in boxes or stuffed into plastic bags – were left piled up in a council car park in Station Road.

It is thought overflowing bottle banks had forced people to dump their bottles and run.

But even after the seven bottle banks had been emptied, the dumped waste remained.

Kirklees Council recently installed height restriction barriers across the entrance to the car park, behind Mirfield Library.

Glass bottles dumped next to the bottle banks in the council car park in Station Road, Mirfield.

When the barriers were first installed they were too low for the glass collection lorry to enter and bins went unemptied, the Examiner understands.

Since then contractors have been given access but bins don’t seem to have been emptied often enough.

Kirklees Council axed household glass collections three years ago, relying on people using bottle banks instead.

Mirfield Tory councillor Martyn Bolt said the car park looked a mess but refused to play the blame game.

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“We should welcome the fact that people want to recycle their bottles rather than throwing them in the grey bins but I would urge people to use community recycling facilities properly,” he said.

Broken glass is scattered around the dumped bottles and Clr Bolt has contacted Kirklees Council .

Glass bottles dumped next to the bottle banks in the council car park in Station Road, Mirfield.

“It’s a health and safety issue and the car park needs to be made safe. It’s not about who’s to blame now, it’s about getting it cleared up.”

This week the Examiner reported how recycling has dropped in Kirklees over the last five years.

In 2010 57,575 tonnes of waste was recycled five years ago compared with 47,378 tonnes in 2014-15.

A spokesman for Kirklees Council said: “We are working with our contractor and cleansing teams to clean up the area and ensure the bottles are recycled appropriately. We are delighted that people have taken the time to recycle but would suggest if similar volumes are produced in the future that they use one of their local Household Waste and Recycling Centres that have much greater capacity.”