CITY SHAME: litter piles up

6:49am Friday 25th July 2008

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Oxford's main shopping street has been branded an embarrassment, because of overflowing rubbish bins and litter scattered around.

Traders and shoppers yesterday condemned the build-up in litter over the past two weeks and called for more frequent collections to tackle the problem.

The criticism comes just weeks after city centre traders voted not to set up a Business Improvement District, which would have seen them contributing an extra one per cent on top of their business rates, in return for extra services, such as "deep cleaning".

Moss Bros' manager Faz Ahmed said: "It has been really bad these past couple of weeks.

"The shops down here have had lots of problems, what with the buskers and the illegal street traders, now we have all this rubbish.

"It's embarrassing really and it must look awful to anyone that's coming to the city for the first time. There's rubbish all over the streets and spilling out of the bins."

Clarks shoe shop manager Julia Dobson said: "It's just disgusting. There are fast food wrappers, bits of paper, empty cans, cigarette butts all over the floor when I close in the evenings.

"It really is awful and it makes me think I wouldn't want to be walking around the city if I was a tourist."

Andrew Barry, 26, of Calves Close, Kidlington, took pictures of the overflowing bins, which he sent to the Oxford Mail. He said: "Everyone always thinks of Oxford as being a beautiful city, but all this litter is just disgusting.

"On Saturday, every single bin along Cornmarket was overflowing. It was like a river of rubbish."

Argenteus jewellery shop manager Patrice Errante said she regularly had to tidy up litter outside her door. She said: "The other day was just horrible, there was litter everywhere - more on the floor than in the bins.

"We need to have two, maybe three people, permanently sweeping the street to keep it clean at this time of year."

Lush cosmetics supervisor Agnes Batfai said: "We can really see it every single day and if there's just a little wind, then it blows into the shop."

Ros Weatherall, who organises the OxClean spring clean for the Oxford Civic Society, said: "I think there needs to be a lot more bins along there, that are bigger and are able to take bigger, bulkier items of rubbish."

A city council spokesman said: "Cornmarket Street is cleaned several times a day. Initial early morning cleaning starts with litterbin clearance and sweeping.

"This is followed by a constant presence of cleansing team staff emptying bins and picking up litter across the city centre from dawn to dusk, seven days a week."