VILLAGERS in Milborne St Andrew have hit out at rubbish collection vans that failed to come during the wet weather.

Residents say they understand that the level of flooding on Monday meant the Dorset Waste Partnership was not able to carry out collections as usual.

But they claim that while other vehicles were able to access Milton Road through the village later in the week the rubbish vans refused to come.

However, other villagers say that hey are not concerned about The bin collctions and were more angry about motorists driving hrough The village sending water into their homes.

They also claimed some drivers had ignored road closure sins and had been abusive to villagers.

Brian Burton said postal vans and supermarket deliveries were able to make their way through or round when the road remained part closed after police signs were removed.

He said: “It seems some of these people are coming in and yet the rubbish people are saying ‘we can’t do that’.”

Mr Burton, 69, said the situation had left villagers unsure as to whether to leave their bins out the whole time or not as they did not want to miss any collections that did come through.

He said: “People are saying ‘Do we leave the bins out all the time’ which we are not really supposed to do because they don’t know when they can take them. And then all of a sudden they will come round and pick them up.”

Dave Andrews said he contacted the authority to let them know that other vehicles were coming through but that did not elicit a response.

He said: “There is no difficulty in vehicles getting through.

“The difficulty was with the bow of the wave from vehicles coming through was affecting two or three properties but that there is not a lot of danger to them now.”

Mr Andrews, 74, has lived in Milborne St Andrew for 12 years and says the attitude of the collection vans somewhat contrasts the camaraderie shown by local people who have all rallied round to help each other.

He said: “A lot of villagers have been very helpful. We helped to direct traffic down the main road when we had single file traffic through there.

“A lot of them have also been doing their own things to help out the rest of the village.”

SCHEDULED COLLECTION TODAY

Director of the Dorset Waste Partnership Steve Burdis said: “Crews have been working through difficult conditions this week to empty bins in the majority of cases.

“On Monday we were unable to carry out recycling collections in Milborne St Andrew due to flooding.

“The crew was redirected to emergency response work, filling and delivering sandbags to the worst affected areas, including Milborne St Andrew.

“We have focused on carrying out scheduled collections, which have moved back a day following Christmas and New Year, as well as sandbagging duties before returning to missed collections if resources allow.

“Milborne St Andrew has a scheduled rubbish and food waste collection on Saturday.

"We will carry out both this collection and the recycling missed earlier in the week.”