A GORSE Hill man has spoken out about the shocking state of his neighbourhood after being sickened by the amount of litter dropped on the streets.

Maurice Small, of Poulton Street, has called on the council to step up their street cleaning efforts in a bid to tackle what Maurice describes as “excessive fly tipping and littering”.

Maurice said: “I am fed up with all the rubbish and fly tipping going on in the town, and in Gorse Hill specifically. It seems now that anywhere you go you just cannot get away from it and it is getting worse. I think that the town’s name should be changed from Swindon to Swinetown.”

Maurice was particularly angry at the number of large household items – such as mattresses and kitchen appliances – being dumped on street corners and in ginnels, as well as more general items of litter such as crisp packets and takeaway boxes.

He said: “No sooner is the rubbish reported to the council and cleared up and another load is dumped. The streets and most back alleys are covered with dropped litter and people’s unwanted items.

“The council is putting us into parishes now. But what will the extra money we currently pay for litter picking services actually go towards, given that the area is smaller now than it will be when we are in parishes? They cannot control the amount of rubbish and fly tipping.

“I believe there was a councillor that was not happy and had complained about the fly tipping in Haydon Wick, so this is not just confined to certain areas but throughout the town.”

At a recent meeting, Haydon Wick parish councillors expressed concerns about litter.

A Swindon Borough Council spokesman said: “We would encourage members of the public to report any litter they spot. Street cleaning, which includes picking up litter, costs the council a significant amount of money and we will prosecute people for dropping waste.

“We have given educational talks in local schools to encourage children not to drop litter and we recently ran a competition with primary schools to build on this work.

“Our Envirocrime team, which has been operating since last July, has issued over 175 Fixed Penalty Notices for littering and trade waste violations. The team has also carried out over 280 investigations into reports of fly-tipping, waste and littering and 14 files are being prepared for prosecution.”

Residents can report litter by logging on to www.swindon.gov.uk/reportlitter.