ON Wednesday, we reported that for the third tine in a year, a large amount of rubbish had amassed at the back of shops in Harlow town centre.

The owners of the land are property developers, Strawberry Star. We invited them to explain why there was a problem.

A spokesperson from Strawberry Star said:

“We are making every attempt to ensure that regular refuse collections are taking place at our Harlow Quarter development as we remain committed to the delivery of new homes in the town.

We have two refuse companies contracted to collect rubbish and recycling, however, unfortunately, this week, due to illegal parking of an unknown vehicle in front of the service area, the collection vehicles were unable to access the bins.

After numerous attempts, the team was unable to reach the owner of the vehicle and therefore the rubbish was not able to be collected.

“As a result, we have arranged for a second rubbish collection to be made every week.

“We can only apologise for the inconvenience that this has caused, and we would like to reassure our neighbours and the wider community that we will also be looking into ways to enforce better parking restrictions to avoid such a situation occurring again.”