FAMILIES who feared rats could be attracted to a large pile of rubbish building up at a popular recycling centre in Felixstowe were today reassured the problem was being dealt with.

FAMILIES who feared rats could be attracted to a large pile of rubbish building up at a popular recycling centre in Felixstowe were today reassured the problem was being dealt with.

Councillor Mike Deacon asked the managers of the centre to remove the waste – but was left disappointed and frustrated when no action was taken for five days.

"I cannot understand why nothing was done immediately. It was a filthy mess and not a very good advert for our town at all," he said.

The pile has been accumulating next to the can and bottle banks at the rear of Solar at Great Eastern Square, Hamilton Road, where there is a busy car park and visitors arrive and exit from the railway station.

It appears someone found the can bank full and left carrier bags of tins next to the container. Others then added to the mess by dumping cardboard, cans and other recyclable waste on the growing heap.

Mr Deacon said: "The full can container has been emptied since this rubbish was first placed there but still no-one took any action to remove this rubbish.

"It won't be long before there are rats there investigating the bits of food waste left in the tins.

"There are shops, businesses and houses nearby and we do not want rats there at all.

"It's a super recycling facility and we want to encourage people to use it, but this will not help at all."

A spokesman for Suffolk Coastal council said a cleansing team had been sent to the site to clean up the mess and inspect the area to make sure it was clean and there were no signs of vermin.

"The can bank at the recycling site at Solar was noticed by one of our recycling team to be full on Friday and was reported to the contractors who emptied it on Monday," he said.

"We received a report that there was bags of rubbish there on Tuesday and the cleansing team have now cleared it up.

"We would like to again remind residents that if they spot a recycling bank that is full please call Suffolk Coastal's recycling team on 01394 444000 who will get the bank emptied.

"We would also remind people that they must not leave bags of recycling items at a recycling site – if the banks are full they can call the same number for details of their next nearest site.

"Otherwise they will just encourage other people to leave their bags and we all end up with an untidy eyesore like the recent one at the Felixstowe site."

WEBLINK: www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk