Shopkeepers angered by a rubbish decision

BAGGING up the rubbish... but (from left) Idris Mansoor, Waseem Mahmood and Mike Cattlin have been banned from taking refuse across to the skips in the Tommyfield Market collection area behind them

Henshaw Street traders have rubbished a decision not to allow them to walk across the street and get rid of their refuse in a Tommyfield Market skip.

The traders say that for over 10 years they have paid Oldham Council up to £378 a year for the ability to dispose of trade rubbish in the market refuse collection area.

But they have now been told the service will end on March 31.

Blue Onion cafe owner Mike Cattlin said: “I took this up with the markets’ office, but they said it was not viable and even though we are prepared to pay, we can’t use it.

“They don’t even have to collect our rubbish as they do on the inside and outside market, and the perimeter shops - we walk across with it.

“I was told the ban applied to the five shops at the top of Henshaw Street and was on the orders of the markets manager, Peter Conroy.”

He is more annoyed because he pays over £100 a year to be part of the town centre Business Improvement District on (BID) top of his rates, he said, and added: “The BID seems to stop before it gets here.

“We never get hanging baskets outside the shop and chewing gum has only been cleaned from the pavement once.

“If we have to have a private collection service, there is nowhere to put the bins at the back, on Fountain Street, which is narrow and always parked up with taxis because it is the access to the rank.

“There will be rubbish bags in the street.”

Next door traders Idris Mansoor and Yusif Ahmed manage a hardware store, and have had the same letter.

And Waseem Mahmood, from Cunningham’s newsagents, added: “For over ten years this has always been the arrangement.

“The markets complain about a shortage of money yet we have always paid for this service. And they don’t even have to collect it. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Oldham Council was unable to comment on the decision.