A Rotherhithe man is calling for help after years of fly-tipping left his home a “fire risk”.
Noel Ciazynski, who lives in Coombrook Court on Elgar Street, has been sending emails to housing association Optivo and Southwark Council for years asking for help with the dangerous and unsightly mess at a bin store in a building next to his house.
Mr Ciazynski has often raised street clean requests as many as three times a week after finding rubbish strewn all over the pavement and the street. He told Optivo, which manages the adjacent bin store, and the council that the fly-tipping is a health and safety problem.
“We know that fly tipping and trash can be dangerous, there are all sorts of objects in those bins, and if they were to be caught in a fire, it would be disastrous,” he said in an email earlier this year.
This follows a report from a fire safety company produced in March 2021. The report said: “The combustible waste spilling from the bin store of an adjacent building is unsightly and an invitation to fire setting. This is a moderate fire risk and measure[s] should be taken to liaise with the managing agents for the property concerned in order to reduce this.”
But residents of the block have been living with this fire risk for at least three years, and Mr Ciazynski is concerned that not enough is being done to protect their safety. A 2019 email to him from a local councillor pointed out that there had been “an arson attack on some fly tipped rubbish that nearly resulted in a house burning down”.
As well as the fire risk, he added that the fly-tipping presents a “hygiene issue”.
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“Kids and families walk in front of the bin sheds in Elgar Street every day,” Mr Ciazynski said. “People don’t even bother to come close to put their trash in the bin, as the place has become so nasty that they prefer to just throw the bags on the floor.”
He added: “Animals of all sorts (foxes, birds, squirrels) come and eat the trash, spreading it all over the pavement.”
Mr Ciazynski has been asking for more and bigger bins and recently for CCTV cameras outside the bin shed to find the culprits.
An email from Surrey Docks councillor Jane Salmon from May this year slammed Optivo: “Not responding to legitimate concerns is extremely unhelpful and unprofessional,” she said.
“We all have a duty of care to our residents, council or social landlord, at the moment this feels like a situation where no care is being applied.”
A council officer told Mr Ciazynski later in May that several new measures were being put in place, including a weekly bulk waste collection and a twice-weekly rubbish collection. Signs telling people not to fly-tip were added, while residents were also sent a letter telling them not to dump their rubbish on the street, among other tactics. The officer said there was not enough space in the bin shed for more bins.
But by last week the problems had still not improved, Mr Ciazynski said – despite the council’s efforts.
A spokesperson for Optivo said: “Although we do not manage Coombrook Court, we’re aware of an ongoing fly- tipping issue affecting our bin store at neighbouring Elgar House on the Redriff Estate, Southwark.
“We understand this is a very frustrating issue for residents and we’ve been closely monitoring the situation.
“To ease the problem, we’ve implemented weekly bulk rubbish collections from this bin store. During this collection, our contractor also cleans the area. This is on top of weekly collections by Southwark Council. In addition, our estates team conduct weekly inspections.
“We’ve installed signs in the area and have raised the issue with Southwark Council. We have also written to residents throughout the estate to remind them that this bin store is for the sole use of Optivo residents, and rubbish should be disposed of appropriately.
“We are very sorry for any distress this has caused and assure residents that we’ll continue to monitor the situation.”