BAGS stuffed full of rubbish have been piling up outside a pensioner’s house for 10 weeks.
Despite Margaret Campbell contacting Kirklees Council’s waste collection service to come and take the sacks away, 30 bags lie rotting at the bottom of her Upper Wellhouse drive.
Margaret, 77, told the Examiner: “It’s a rotten service and a rubbish service – if you excuse the pun.
“I don’t particularly like all these piles of rubbish at the end of my drive and they are starting to smell.”
The grandmother-of-five contacted the council’s household waste collection service 10 weeks ago to ask them pick up 15 bags of garden waste.
She told the Examiner: “Two weeks later I telephoned to remind them and inform them that the collection had now grown to 30 bags.
“Since then, it has been a weekly follow-up call including an email.
“It is still there, quietly fermenting and doing a good job of becoming compost all by itself.
“All I am ever told is that I am still in the system.”
The mother-of-two filled the bags with rhododendron clippings from her large acre garden.
The keen gardener said: “Rhododendron doesn’t rot down well so I couldn’t put it in the compost heap at the bottom of the garden.
“I’ve had to stop gardening now because I don’t want the pile to get any higher.
“They suggested that I take it to the tip myself – but I am 77 years-old.
“Although I’m fit for my age, I just don’t have the time or the inclination to be making trips back and forth to the tip in my car.
“The council shouldn’t be offering the service if they can’t deliver it.”
Margaret, who used to be a draughtsman, added: “It’s not that the house is hard to find.
“I mean, they come and collect the bins every week and they can find the house then.
“And they’ve been before to collect the garden waste – that time it took five weeks. My friend in Holmfirth says their service is excellent and hers gets picked up almost straight away.
“I don’t know why it’s taking so long to collect mine.”
Yesterday, the Examiner contacted Kirklees Council and a spokesman said the rubbish would be collected from outside Mrs Campbell’s house today.
A spokesman said: “Ms Campbell, who is a regular user of the service, first requested the collection in August, which is one of our busiest times for this service.
“We aim to try and provide a service within 10 working days, but in this instance there was an error on our part and we would like to apologise to Ms Campbell for this oversight.”
Kirklees Council Environmental Services deals with more than 10,000 free garden waste collections every year.
