TAKEAWAY bosses embroiled in a row over rats and rubbish in an alley have carried out a clean-up to make the area ‘spotless’.

A video published by the Lancashire Telegraph on Monday revealed the‘disgusting’ mess behind a row of takeaway shops in Darwen Street, Blackburn.

In one segment of the video, rats could be seen gathered under a bin, eating waste food.

And a photograph taken by student Michelle Ayers showed overflowing bins, discarded food tubs and cans, broken furniture and a shopping trolley.

Following publication of the story, Malik Amir, who works in the Miami take-away but runs No 39 across the road, said the takeaways on that stretch of Darwen Street had received online abuse from angry customers.

Mr Amir told the LT that in a bid to redeem their reputations, owners and workers from Miami, Maroosh, and Oasis Fast Food, whose shops back onto the alley, would vow to keep the space clean.

Mr Amir said: “We’ve taken your advice and on Monday night the back alley was cleaned and is now spotless.

“All the takeaways banded together and everyone chipped in and bought a pressure-washer.

“One person from each takeaway went out to clean the mess. We were there for a few hours and cleaned everything up.”

Mr Amir, who provided pictures and a video of the clean-up, said he was aware of the need to clean the alleyway, as it was in an unacceptable state.

He said: “I am personally going to make sure that everyone will keep on top of it.

“If we need to get more bins then we will get them; we have to start from somewhere so we are now making a conscious effort to clean up and will do a full power-clean once a week.

“It’s going to take us a bit of time but we have to have a bit of respect for the area.”

Mr Amir also said that the rubbish, which is discarded in large skips, would be locked up at night, and they would ensure that all the skips closed correctly in order to prevent overflowing.

He said: “We received a lot of abuse after that article but want to reassure customers we are not going to let it happen again.”