ALTON Town Council has raised a strong objection to an application to vary a planning condition at The Coach House on Lenten Street in the town.

The condition would remove the requirement for a bin and cycle storage area in the yard serving five flats and put the onus on each of the tenants to keep a bin in the limited space outside their own front door.

In the case of the three first-floor flats this would mean on a balcony or narrow open mesh metal walkway, with the risk of rubbish falling through onto people below and being impossible to move when full.

In discussing the proposal during last week’s town council planning meeting, councillors heard that, at present, the tenants have no bin storage facility and are required to keep their rubbish inside their flats for two weeks, before putting it out for collection on the pavement on Lenten Street, secured in plastic bags.

This arrangement has led to criticism from neighbouring residents and business owners who have raised health and safety concerns about the bags being ripped apart overnight by rats and foxes, leaving rubbish strewn across the street and causing pedestrians to step into the road because the pavement is blocked.

It was also felt to be unhealthy for tenants, particularly those with children, having to keep refuse inside their premises for such a long period of time, attracting flies and maggots.

Tenants have become so desperate that they regularly ferry rubbish down to the tip in a car.

Councillors recognised that the courtyard area, originally designated on the regeneration plan for the conversion of the building into living accommodation, has instead been turned into an attractive garden sitting area for one of the ground-floor flats. And that has left nowhere appropriate to site refuse bins.

In making the case for a variation to the condition, the owner of the site points out that each of the five flats has its own private outdoor area, the two ground-floor premises have a small courtyard, two of the first-floor flats have a metal balcony, and a third flat has a roof terrace, on which they can keep bins and cycles. However, the arrangement with the refuse collection agency is that rubbish must be put out on the pavement in sacks. Bagged refuge is not allowed to be left in the outdoor areas of the site, nor in the communal passageway.

It is also suggested that cycles should be kept inside the flats, or secured if left outside.

But councillors felt that the overriding concerns over health and safety issues for all of the tenants could not be overlooked and that no evidence had been submitted that they felt would validate a variation to the original condition. It was also contrary to the policies as set down in Alton’s Neighbourhood Plan.