Rats spotted in Aylesbury town centre as council is urged to address 'overflowing' rubbish
Our town is overflowing with rubbish and rats, an Aylesbury woman says.
Rachel Bunce has lived in the town all her life and says it has been in decline for some time.
Bucks Council has acknowledged the issue and says that the Environment Agency is also aware of issues regarding Aylesbury town centre.
Its street scene teams are following up to address the mess, the authority revealed.
Rachel told The Bucks Herald that she now refuses to shop in Aylesbury, only passing through to get to and from work, as she is met with scenes of overflowing rubbish and rats running amok.
She said: “For the past two years, I’ve seen at least one rat every morning. My sister-in-law has a phobia of rats, she won’t walk down Cambridge Street.
“Since TG Jones shut down on the High Street, there’s been a build-up of rubbish at the back of the building. There’s this old fridge with rats running back and forth across the road. I’ve even seen babies in the back of the fridge.”
“I see people eating in the ice cream parlour and sitting outside the coffee shops and I wonder if they realise that there’s so many rats feet away from where they’re sitting, drinking and eating.”
And, if that’s not bad enough, Rachel says at the top of the street, someone has dumped a mattress near some commercial wheelie bins along with a split bag of rubbish.
She adds: “Kingsbury Square used to be really pretty with two fountains. They were renovating it but ran out of money. Now one’s full of bricks, there’s loads of pigeon poop and industrial bins are overflowing.”
Rachel says she’s contacted the council’s environmental health department on four occasions but they continue to ‘pass the book’, asking whose land it is and whether she can confront the venue owners directly.
“It’s just become a dumping ground. It bugs me that people don’t take pride in it. And the council don’t seem to care. The town’s getting bigger and there are no resources to clean it up.”
And Rachel’s is not the only complaint. An anonymous post on an Aylesbury Facebook page described rats climbing into their window and even up the toilet of their town centre flat. They allege the council said it was ‘not a threat to life’.