A HUGE clean-up operation has been ordered after rotting piles of rubbish were discovered dumped on a Burnley estate.

Residents have been left ‘shocked’ and ‘sickened’ after the fly-tipping was found over the past week.

Dozens of black bin bags full of waste, old mattresses and household rubbish have been dumped in a 20-metre stretch outside Astley House, off Albert Street.

Council bosses have deposited a skip, which remains empty, outside the former Burnley mill and ordered tenants to get rid of the eyesore heap, which is believed to have attracted rats.

Because the entrance gate outside the premises is regularly open, neighbours and local councillors fear it is an open invitation to fly-tippers, who have plagued the Bank Hall area for months.

The area has been targeted for a crackdown on fly-tipping and anti-social littering by Burnley Council. But despite that the rubbish has built up in the past two weeks.

One resident said the mess, which she could see from her front door, had left her feeling “sick to her stomach”.

The owners of Astley House, which houses a number of industrial units, have already been blasted by residents after nine-year-old Callum Taylor, of nearby Sandhurst Street, fell off the open gate there.

He suffered serious head injuries back in April after the gate struck him to his left temple while he was playing nearby.

Coun Gary Frayling, who represents Bank Hall ward, said: “We have asked Astley House to clean this up, which is hopefully what they are going to do.

“Having been down there it does seem that the majority of the waste there is residential but Astley House have got barriers there which are left open 24 hours a day and people are going along and dumping all sorts there.

“We also need to educate the majority of people, but not all of them, about the proper way of dealing with this kind of problem.”

Neighbours blame companies based at Astley House for their predicament.

A Bank Hall residents spokesman said: “They’ve dumped their rubbish into a huge festering mound and failed to deal with anti-social littering and fly-tipping.”

Just this week residents lost a fight to prevent Bubble Travel from keeping a mini-bus depot, opened without planning permission, at Astley House.

Councillors gave the firm an 18-month stay of execution until they hopefully seal a deal with the town hall to move to the Heasandford Industrial Estate.

Residents accused the firm, at a development control committee, of ripping down trees outside Astley House and failing to control the tipping problem.