• ANYONE walking in West Hampstead is confronted on a daily basis by business rubbish piled high and dumped on the pavements and household refuse in supermarket bags, frequently untied, open and pulled apart by foxes and rats, along with any furniture, clothing, electrical goods, large boxes, mattresses, builders’ paint cans, tools and sacks of cement etc.

Add to this black refuse and recycling bins, left days ahead of collec­tion date, and then left empty because the residents either can’t be bothered to put them back on their premises or do not have sufficient space for them. Businesses are supposed to pay for business collections, but it’s free to dump instead and Camden Council turn a blind eye.

When I moved to West Hampstead in the 1980s, we had two collections a week and provided our own smaller bins which were sufficient. Then Camden gave us rows of enormous black bins and one collection per week. Now we get one collection every two weeks. Where is this going?

And even the massive black bins are insufficient to accommodate multi-family units with the majority of properties divided with many flats. It’s certainly not saving Camden money because Veolia is directed to send units out twice a day to remove the dumped rubbish, though it’s hard to tell if that happens regularly.

T BERG
NW2