INCONSIDERATE residents’ parking in a Godmanchester street meant their neighbours bins were not emptied for weeks.

Up to the 30 homes in Roman Way were affected by missed collections because council workers were unable to manoeuvre their lorry past parked cars on the narrow road.

John Anderson, 64, who lives in Roman Way, said: “We’ve had terrible trouble for two weeks. They were due to collect our blue bins but got three-quarters of the way down the road and stopped. They didn’t empty all the bins. I phoned the council and they sent out one of their small vans the next morning.

“This week, the green bins were due for collection – but the same thing happened. I phoned the council and they said they didn’t think they could send a van out this time.

“It’s driving us round the bend! We have threatened to empty our bins in the middle of the street – but they said we would be done for fly tipping.”

He explained: “It’s a narrow street and people park on the road – even though they all have driveways and garages. It’s terrible.”

A spokesman for Huntingdonshire District Council, the authority responsible for waste collection, said: “The problem here is that our teams can’t drive a refuse truck down this road because of the way residents are parking their cars. We have asked the police to see what they can do but this has had no effect. We have, on a couple of occasions, used a smaller vehicle to get down this road but this vehicle is not always available and it costs the council extra money to use it.

“We have spoken with Mr Anderson and advised him that if the residents could get together to try and encourage everyone to park more considerately on bin collection days, this would help us. Mr Anderson did phone us this week to say that the road was clear and within 15 minutes of taking his call we had dispatched a large vehicle and cleared all of the bins (green, blue and grey) all in one go.

“As long as residents continue to park their cars considerately so that our large refuse truck can gain access to Roman Way, we can carry out our regular collections and stop the build-up of unemptied bins.”