A ROW has broken out over rats and ‘disgusting’ piles of rubbish in a back alley behind town centre takeaways.

Student Michelle Ayers took photos of the mess behind Darwen Street in Blackburn, which show overflowing bins, discarded food tubs and cans, broken furniture and even a shopping trolley.

And a Lancashire Telegraph video taken on Saturday shows rats gathered under one bin eating waste food.

The takeaway owners say they do their best to keep the alley clean and blame other people using the alley as a dumping ground. They say they have asked the council to put up gates to keep fly-tippers out.

Lancashire Telegraph:

But Blackburn with Darwen’s environment boss says the mess is down to the takeaways and it’s their problem to sort it out.

Blackburn College fine art student Miss Ayers, of Whinny Heights, Blackburn said: “This is an absolute disgrace. The alley is open to the public, so anyone can see just what a mess there is down there.

“I think the council ought to fine the people operating the takeaways as it’s the people working their who should be responsible for cleaning the mess up.

“It’s not down to the council to clean up after them. Whoever is leaving the alley like this is creating a breeding ground for rats. It’s filthy.”

This month the Lancashire Telegraph revealed food hygiene ratings across Blackburn with Darwen - click on the links below to find out how your local takeaway performed

Blackburn with Darwen food hygiene - rating 5

Blackburn with Darwen food hygiene - rating 4

Blackburn with Darwen food hygiene - rating 3

Blackburn with Darwen food hygiene - rating 2

Blackburn with Darwen food hygiene - rating 1

However, manager of Oasis Fast Food, Saeed Natha, said: “I’m sick and tired of this. I clean that alleyway with my own hands, and each takeaway is responsible for their own mess.

“The alley is open at the top and sometimes people from elsewhere come and dump their rubbish behind our shops. There’s a Tesco trolley down there for goodness sake, why would we put a trolley like that at the back of our shops?

“If you can see, all our skips are closed and are emptied by the council, the orange bin with the mayonnaise tubs in, I don’t know who that belongs to but it’s not ours.

“When the alley is blocked like that with rubbish the council can’t get down to empty the bins.

“We’ve asked for gates so that other people can’t put their rubbish down there. If we get gates and it’s still like that, then we have to take that up with the other takeaways to find out who is leaving it in such a state.

“I would welcome gates at the top of the alley and would like to know what the council has to say about it.”

Lancashire Telegraph:

Malik Amir, of Miami takeaway, who also runs No.39 across the road, said: “The trouble is, you’re going to get rats wherever you are if there’s food waste being thrown away.

“I run the takeaway across the road and we use pressure washers out the back of No.39 to clean the alley behind there. It’s fine saying ‘it’s not my responsibility, I clean my bit’ but we can’t blame each other, it’s the responsibility of all the takeaways to keep that alley clean.”

READ MORE: Blackburn with Darwen pubs and clubs - hygiene rating January 2019

A worker from Maroosh who did not want to be named said: “I have tried to ask the other takeaways to clean it up but they say it’s not their responsibility.

“I have suggested we should all chip in £50 to get someone to clean it if nobody wants to do it themselves but no one has done anything about it.”

Oasis was rated two stars out of five in the latest hygiene ratings from Blackburn with Darwen Council while Maroosh and Miami received one star, the lowest rating being zero stars.

Lancashire Telegraph:
Executive member for environment at Blackburn with Darwen Council, Councillor Jim Smith, said the council does not have a gate policy and if the takeaways want to put gates up then they need to discuss and organise it between themselves.

He said: “Firstly, we need to find out who that orange bin belongs to, but I can tell you, it’s the takeaways that are doing this; people who chuck rubbish chuck it exactly where they live.

“That rubbish is coming from them. It’s their businesses and they need to get on top of this mess. If they were doing what they’re supposed to there wouldn’t be any rats. If they want to put gates up, they’re more than welcome to.

“I definitely wouldn’t buy from there if I saw that outside.”