Our Bexley street has become a messy pot-holed fly-tip, say fed up residents

By Joe Coughlan, Local Democracy Reporter

Bexley residents are frustrated by potholes and fly-tipping in a street that has become a long-running eyesore.

Parkside Road sits in Belvedere, running alongside Frank’s Park and several residential roads.

Serife Mehmet, 30, has lived off Parkside Road for 15 years and said fewer bin collections from the council has contributed to more littering in the area. She said she feels potholes on the street have also got much worse in recent years and make cars filthy when it rains.

She said: “The car at the moment looks like it’s been on a farm. I think we’re just so used to it but we get families that don’t want to come to our house because they don’t want to park up and ruin their car, which is totally understandable.”

The mum said she regularly sees mattresses, furniture and bin bags strewn across the road. Also a common sight are discarded supermarket baskets, abandoned domestic dust bins and car parts.

She said: “I see foxes. They go into the bins because the lids are open when they fill up. They are taking all the rubbish and it’s everywhere.”

She added: “I have wanted to move many a time, I can’t be bothered anymore around here. I am out picking up people’s rubbish and I shouldn’t have to but I can’t live like that.”

Bexley council said last month that 264 fines had been issued for fly-tipping in Belvedere so far this year. They added that the authority’s cleansing teams had conducted 32 visits to Parkside Road in the past 12 months.

Sarah Akin, 23, has lived beside the street her whole life. She said: “It got a lot worse three years ago. Even in the alleyway near my house, people have just started throwing stuff because I think that they know that they won’t get punished for it.

“It attracts rodents and other animals because we live near a park, sometimes they get into the garden. It’s not nice to live with.”

Paul Chandler, 54, said potholes and fly-tipping have been an issue on the road for as long as he can remember. He said that he and other neighbours take it upon themselves to fill in the deep holes on the road with rubble and bricks. He added that cars have been left abandoned on the road on several occasions, with one being set on fire four months ago.

Mr Chandler said: “It’s a nightmare. We get fly-tips regularly along here. We had a car fire go up, that’s why the fence got burnt. We pay to get our rubbish collected. We end up having to pay for fly-tipped items to get picked up as well.”

The local said he pays £250 as often as every three months to have discarded waste on the street collected. He said that when raising the issue with Bexley council, he has been told the road is not the authority’s responsibility.

Bexley council say that Parkside Road is an ‘unadopted road’ having no registered ownership, meaning maintenance and clearance of waste from the area is at the discretion of residents. However, they said the authority’s environmental services team would continue to remove hazardous or dangerous waste.

They said the authority would also inspect such waste to investigate who was responsible.

A town hall spokesman said: “Officers have also offered to arrange a site visit with residents in the first instance and discuss the option of improving the current fly-tipping signage. The council will be happy to investigate any potential CCTV evidence provided by residents or interview any witnesses which will help them identify and prosecute offenders.”

Adopting the road would require the authority to install road drainage, resurface the street, add signage and street lighting as well as carry out regular street cleaning, but a the spokesman said: “The council will not be exploring the option to adopt this road. This is because there is no budget to cover the cost of the adoption of the road and all associated responsibilities and would not solve the fly-tipping issues.”

Pictured top: Serife Mehmet said she has often wished to move away from the area due to the extent of the rubbish (Picture: Joe Coughlan)