I took a walk down one of the grottiest streets in Northampton – it's a disgraceful half-a-mile stretch of pure filth

Residents living near Wellingborough Road have shared pictures on social media showing the appalling state of the footpath behind shops and takeaways in the area.

What’s more, prominent businessman Wes Suter, director at Steffans jewellers, recently announced he’s leaving the town after 48 years due to a feeling that his end of town has been "forgotten about," adding that there is something "grossly wrong."

So, I decided to take a walk and see for myself what that end of town looked like.

Starting from the bottom of St Edmund’s Road, next to York Road, I walked all the way up to East Street, following the footpath behind the premises on the right-hand side of Wellingborough Road.

What I found was a half-mile stretch of possibly the biggest dump in this town—certainly the longest stretch of grot. It’s almost an art form, it’s that unbelievably grim and long. Like walking through a museum of rubbish, my jaw dropped further with each new sight, each worse than the last.

Taking pictures as I walked like a tourist at a rubbish tip, I captured mattresses, numerous overflowing Biffa bins, litter strewn everywhere, a washing machine, a fridge, a small homeless encampment, and just general rubbish everywhere.

One person passed me as I was taking photos and said the bins were attracting rats. Lovely. There’s a whole housing estate behind Wellingborough Road. How is this fair on them?

Wellingborough Road itself looked quite clean—now I know why—because there’s a culture of chucking all the rubbish out of sight around the back.

This newspaper cannot name and shame any businesses, as we cannot be 100% sure who is responsible but efforts to tackle this disgrace must be stepped up immediately.

All I know is, whatever is being done now is not working. There needs to be a major shift in the attitude and approach we’re taking as a town.

By highlighting this mess, I hope the businesses along that road take note and clean up their act. I hope WNC gets tougher on them and ensures the area is cleaner, and I hope anyone walking through that area doesn’t have to feel so ashamed of where they live.

If nothing gets done, I’ve checked the Guinness World Records and Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, New York City, holds the record for the biggest rubbish tip, but there’s no record for the longest... Failing that, it would make a great case study for other towns on how not to manage fly-tipping.

Labour councillor Danielle Stone, whose ward this lies in, said: “It is outrageous that commercial waste bins are allowed to sit on residential land, creating an eyesore and a health hazard for local families.

“The owners of the bins are clearly not respecting the need for us all to be environmentally aware and for public spaces to be clean, green and safe.

"The problem has become a lot worse since neighbourhood wardens have been given patches too big to manage. There was a time when they were able to work effectively with retailers to minimise the problem.

"We need the council to urgently take steps to stop this happening.”

Responding, Cllr Matt Golby, Cabinet Member for Adult Care, Public Health and Regulatory Services, said: “We can confirm that we are aware of the majority of the issues highlighted.

“The photographs seem to show that most of these are commercial bins, some on private land, and we continue to liaise with businesses and residents in the area to tackle these issues.

“We would urge people to continue reporting problems to us through our app and website, and we will tackle them as appropriate, including taking enforcement action where possible, and by working with landowners.

“Where we can gather robust evidence, we do enforce, though we do rely our communities to support us by reporting issues to us.

“To report any issue visit the “Report a problem” page on our website or download our app on Google Play or the App Store.”