Residents living in flats in Oxford have complained they have no recycling services -- despite paying large council tax bills.

Stan Taylor, a former city councillor for Cowley Marsh, who lives in Oxford Road, Cowley, has complained that many residents living in flats were not being provided with recycling facilities.

This is despite the city council using a slogan on its recycling lorries which promises to make life "easy" for residents in flats.

The council's recycling performance improved in the year 2002-2003, with 13 per cent of waste recycled, up three per cent from the previous year, but the residents say this figure could be improved immediately if they were able to put out rubbish for recycling.

Kate Griffin, 24, of Venneit Close, near Oxford railway station, said the council should not use the slogan on its recycling lorries without providing a full service.

Miss Griffin, a property writer for Newsquest Oxfordshire, the publisher of the Oxford Mail, said: "The council should put its money where its mouth is. I pay more than £1,000 a year in council tax and yet there's no recycling service for my flat.

"I'm an environmentalist and I have been putting my recycling out every Monday and then ringing the council to get them to collect it. Otherwise, I have to cycle to recycling banks in Ferry Hinksey Road and I don't see why I should have to."

At the council's Cowley area committee meeting last week, Mr Taylor said: "I want to recycle my rubbish. We were told we would get a special recycling facility as we were not given recycling boxes, but this hasn't happened.

"We pay for a service we don't get the benefit of -- I do hope the area committee can take time to look into this."

Cowley councillor Bryan Keen, who is also the city's Lord Mayor, added: "There are quite a lot of flats that get built with no recycling facilities. It's something we need to look at."

City council spokesman Zoe Howard said the authority was providing on-street recycling facilities for flats where the green box scheme was not appropriate. Large recycling containers are provided for communal use.

Miss Howard added that there were 190 blocks, including council and private accommodation, which had been given recycling facilities, but 70 sites had not.

She said it was hoped that the "vast majority" of residents in flats would have recycling facilities by next January.

Miss Howard said: "The council is aware that recycling is not available for every flat but it is working towards that.

"There are six phases of introducing this and phases one to five have now been completed."

The council is co-operating with Oxford University colleges in a phased scheme to provide their students with recycling facilities, with the aim of covering all the colleges in the long term. Oxford Brookes University already has its own scheme.