Changes are being made to rubbish collection services in Felixstowe after seafront bins were left unemptied and overflowing.

Residents were horrified at the state of the prom after a busy weekend left it strewn with rubbish – and some people even took on the job of getting plastic sacks and clearing the area themselves.

One seafront resident said: “It was horrible. People had clearly wanted to use the bins because they left their rubbish piled up around them – there was nothing else they could do.”

After a flurry of complaints, contractors Suffolk Coastal Norse have now apologised for the situation and said that action is being taken to ensure it does not happen again.

Felixstowe Town Council is also very upset at the failings and is to meet with the contractors and their employers, Suffolk Coastal District Council, to discuss further service improvements.

In an open letter to residents Mark Emms, director of Suffolk Coastal Norse, said over the busy weekend of August 22-23 the company “did not offer our usual high quality of service and the bins were not emptied”.

He said: “This meant that bins were left overflowing along the seafront and in other parts of the town during what was a highly successful weekend for Felixstowe, with a large number of people visiting the town.

“I have looked into what went wrong and discovered our normal planning, back-up and recovery systems did not work on this occasion.

“I recognise this is totally unacceptable and can only apologise to the people of Felixstowe.

“We have made changes to make sure this is not repeated in the future and I am also using this as an opportunity to review the services Suffolk Coastal Norse provides within the resort to see if we can make further improvements to our service.

“It is clear that Felixstowe is seeing a consistent growth in tourism. While this is a great success story for Felixstowe economically, we need to make sure that we keep pace and respond to the increasing demand by providing the level of service you need to support this growth.

“Please accept my personal apologies for the recent lapse in our service and be assured we will continue to work to provide the best possible services to Felixstowe.”