Leam residents rubbish students

At the beginning of December last year, the problem of student waste disposal resurfaced in Leamington Spa.

Complaints had been made previously at the start of the summer holidays when students moving out of their Leamington houses piled up rubbish around the small bins provided by council.

Several Leamington residents were bothered by this issue. Zoe Murray, who lives next door to five Warwick students, wrote on this issue to the _Leamington Courier_, and Warwick District Council (WDC) solved the problem by giving her household new, bigger wheeled bins.

Towards the end of 2008, WDC spokesman Richard Brooker commented in the _Courier_: “We have been unable to contact any of the residents or letting agents to discuss this with them, but we have now replaced the existing bin with a ‘super size’ 240 litre bin. As a goodwill gesture, all the existing refuse, including black sacks, has now all been placed in the new sized bin and will be collected over the next few days. We are in the process of writing to the occupier.”

Extra problems were caused by the fact that some of the rubbish had been left within the confines of the student property, and the Council was therefore unable to trespass and remove the waste.

However, students often complain about the small size of the rubbish bins provided by the Council.

A second year mathematics student commented, “The houses are not provided with sufficiently large bins, so it becomes indeed difficult to accommodate a week’s waste in a small council bin, especially if you’re living in a five student house”.

Problems regarding waste management do not seem to be the only issue local residents take with student houses. Robert Nash, clerk to Leamington Town Council, said: “The benefits of a student population are mitigated by the effect that houses in multiple occupation have on their immediate neighbours. These problems are not confined to the end of term when students are leaving.”

He continued, “The nature of houses in multiple occupation is such that issues of good neighbourliness are often given very little weight in the planning process. For this reason the Town Council often raises objections to applications for houses to be used in multiple occupancy where these result in an over concentration of such developments.”

The issue of excess rubbish will remain under control for the next ten weeks, but problems are likely to arise once more towards the end of term.