“UTTERLY irresponsible” was how former district councillor Jerry Janes described the dumping of a bag filled with needles and syringes in Upper Neatham Mill Lane, Holybourne, last Friday.

Some of the contents of the bag had spilled into the road dangerously near children and pedestrians walking to and from the village along the main London Road.

Alerted to the danger, Mr Janes and his neighbours rang East Hampshire District Council’s (EHDC) environmental health department to send out someone to pick up the bag and its contents.

“But,” he said, “although we rang and rang we couldn’t get through and all the time children, out shopping with their parents, were walking near the bag as it was half on the pavement and any cyclist was in danger of falling off into the road and onto the needles and broken syringes.

“We don’t know who did this but how utterly irresponsible to dump something like this opposite a church and near a primary school. Thank goodness the children were on half term.”

A Herald reporter was able to get through to EHDC and, and Mr Janes said: “They (EHDC environmental health officers) were out within the hour and removed the bag and the broken drug paraphernalia, but it was a very worrying situation for a time.”

With no clue who dumped it, Mr Janes said it may be someone driving through the village late at night “and throwing the bag at the entrance to the first lane they came to”.

He also pointed out that, for a while, homeless people had been living under the nearby railway bridge and one of their tents was still there, but he didn’t know if any of them had been using drugs.

“We are just glad that, when they got here, the EHDC team acted quickly and cleared the needles away” he said.