MR Massey, the borough's chief environmental health officer, is quoted as saying that where there is a risk to the public, then priority is given to remove the offending items. I regularly collect rubbish which has been dumped on the field adjacent to Willow Tree School and Taunton Avenue, Sutton Leach. Otherwise children just scatter the rubbish, and smash bottles on the road. Also, I want to keep the area clean and tidy.

While going to pick up yet another bag, with the contents already spilling out, I noticed a box of anti-depressants. These could cause hallucinations and convolutions.

I phoned the council and a lady came. She found letters with the names and address of the people who dumped the bags and said priority would be given to moving the bags.

That was March. Since then I have rang three times more, and am still waiting collection of the offending bags, plus extra items dumped since.

However, I do feel cleaning up rubbish dumped is not the responsibility of St Helens Council. It is the responsibility of people not to dump it in the first place. Many of these people actually live in the area where they are dumping!

St Helens has a tip where waste can be taken, free of charge. Or better still why can't these people use their own bins? My rubbish fits in my bin.

Fed-up 'cleaner' (name and address supplied).

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.