Local councillors saddened by abuse of extra waste measures in Headingley and Hyde Park.

11.28.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 2nd Jul 2008

The streets of Headingley and Hyde Park were once again strewn with litter and discarded possessions this week, as students left their rented accommodation to head home for the summer. Local councillors say it is a case of a small minority spoiling things for the majority. They also blame local abuse of the special waste measures put in place for this period.

Leeds City Council arranged for eleven skips to be stationed in strategic points throughout Headingley, Hyde Park and Burley to allow students to dispose of unwanted goods and rubbish. On a quick inspection of the skips on Monday lunchtime, most were found to be piled high with unwanted furniture and garden waste that had obviously been dumped by landlords, rather than the target student community. This overfilling of the skips left many students with no option but to pile their waste around the skips or next to their own black bins.

A further problem has been overnight "bag-slashers", who have gone from street to street, rifling through bags and up-ending bins, spreading litter across roads and pavements.

Cllr James Monaghan (Lib Dem, Headingley) comments:

"Local councillors, the Area Committee and students' unions have worked very hard to provide the necessary facilities to dispose of all this waste in a considerate and tidy manner. This is, therefore, a real blow.

It is really very demoralising to see the streets in this condition. I have spoken to a number of local residents who tell me that students have bagged their waste sensibly and left it neatly in and around black bins, only for people to come round after dark and rip the bags open, causing a mess. Misuse of the skips, often out of pure laziness, has also had real knock-on consequences for the state of the area."

"Naturally, much of the blame can be attributed to certain members of the student population themselves and this is an issue we will once again address with the student unions. It is very annoying, however, that some landlords feel it is acceptable to abuse the systems in place and disrupt efforts to keep the area tidy.

Streetscene has been really efficient in clearing up the mess and many of the streets that were in an atrocious state only this morning are now pristine. If, however, we are to prevent this happening in future years, students and landlords must work together to prevent this kind of abuse."