Keep-streets-clean plea after report of rat attack

A council has urged residents to help keep the streets clean after a report of a woman being bitten by a rat.

Leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council Phil Riley said the borough had a "huge amount" of flytipping and "clearly that attracts rats".

A woman was reportedly bitten several times on her ankle by a rodent on Abraham Street in Blackburn town centre, according to the Lancashire Telegraph. Riley said it was "clearly an awful experience" for the victim.

It comes as a recent council forum revealed that, despite more waste than ever being collected and teams of volunteer litter pickers, flytipping had increased, with 93 flytipping penalties last year amounting to more than £32,000 of fines.

Riley said: "We have a huge amount of issues with flytipping, every council does and clearly that attracts rats.

"We have just agreed to spend another half a million pounds on cleaning up."

Riley told BBC Radio Lancashire: "The sad thing is, the money we spend on this is money we could spend on much more worthwhile things like looking after kids."

He added: "It is money we could have spent some place else.

"Clearly, people want us to keep the streets clean - that is absolutely fair but it isn't resources we would choose to do that."

At a council forum earlier this month the executive member for environment and communities, councillor Jim Casey, said flytipping fines would pay for a number of measures to step up the council's enforcement action, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

He admitted the situation had "gotten out of hand".

He said: "We're going to get extra flytipping teams, back alley teams, more mobile CCTV, static cameras.

"We will be getting an environmental crime officer who will just be concentrating on that."

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