By Jonathan BarnesA TOWN'S residents are kicking up a stink about the rising piles of rubbish lining their streets.Refuse collections appear to have gone awry in certain parts of Stowmarket over the Christmas and New Year period, with some householders complaining their rubbish had not been collected for almost three weeks.

By Jonathan Barnes

A TOWN'S residents are kicking up a stink about the rising piles of rubbish lining their streets.

Refuse collections appear to have gone awry in certain parts of Stowmarket over the Christmas and New Year period, with some householders complaining their rubbish had not been collected for almost three weeks.

Piles of bulging bin bags could be seen on the roadside in the Chilton Hall area yesterday and problems have also been reported in the Poplar Hill and Hill Rise areas of the town.

Roger Saunders, the leader of Mid Suffolk District Council, promised last night to investigate the problems – and revealed his rubbish was also still waiting to be collected.

Mr Saunders, who lives in Great Blakenham, said he would be speaking to council officers this morning and issued an apology to those affected.

Matt Davies, 28, of Priestley Close, in the Chilton Hall area of Stowmarket, said the last rubbish collection in his area had been on December 18.

"I didn't receive any information about collections over Christmas and when I asked, I was told they came on Christmas Eve," he said. "They said they were doing a collection on Friday, but the rubbish is still there.

"Everyone's rubbish is stacked up in bin bags on the roadside. Driving through Stowmarket today and seeing all the rubbish on the pavements was disgusting."

Kevin Shields, of Wordsworth Close, said he had heard of two parts of the town being missed out in the Christmas and New Year collections.

"Dates were, of course, different to usual for these areas due to public holidays, but were well advertised in local papers and are still on Mid Suffolk's website, so I would have thought the council itself might have known when they were – the residents certainly did," he added.

"No doubt there will be many excuses, but they will not detract from the amount of litter now distributed around the streets thanks to the weather, cats, dogs, kids and various other means which cause bin bags to disperse their contents."

Mr Saunders said there had not been a refuse collection in his neighbourhood over the New Year period.

"I'm disturbed and upset to hear of these problems and I will be asking our officers to take a serious line with the contractors, Onyx, tomorrow morning," he said.

"I want to know why they haven't done it and what they are going to do to put it right. I would like to apologise to anyone who has been affected."

jonathan.barnes@eadt.co.uk