Stratford District Council will offer residents their own bins for recycling plastic bottles and cardboard as well as for garden and food waste from next August.

But with no such plastic-recycling facility available at the moment, the area's Liberal Democrats want the recycling bins in the town's Wood Street car park improved.

Coun Andrew Patrick (Harbury and Bishops Itchington) said: " For a public, maintained car park, this site is often an eyesore because the plastic bins are overflowing and stacked up around them with excess bags and bottles."

At a district council meeting to debate waste collection last week the councillors asked for the site and others in the area to be reviewed "with regard to nuisance tidiness, hygiene, the level of demand, number and size of receptacles, and clarity of signage".

But this proposal, along with another to "introduce neighbourhood collection points, including for plastics and cardboard" until the new system starts, failed when put to the vote.

Bishops Itchington resident Chris Moir said: "This is the collection point for many villages around Southam and the central place we can take plastics to have them recycled.

"The Wood Street car park is frequently a mess because the collections don't keep pace with the public's enthusiasm for recycling."

The Wood Street car park in Southam is owned and operated by the district council and is one of six sites for the collection of plastics.
Coun John Appleton (Con, Southam) said he was unaware of concerns about the bins and had received no complaints.