PURPLE sacks of rubbish are being left to pile up on street corners due to a reduction in collections - it is claimed.

Powys council stopped collecting rubbish once every fortnight in November last year. Instead the council introduced three-weekly collections to empty black wheelie bins that should hold non food waste and rubbish that can’t be recycled.

In Castle Street in Brecon town centre a regular pile of purple sacks, issued by the council to houses unsuitable for wheelie bins, has been building up during the three weekly collection cycle.

Alec Nestorow, whose AJN Design and Surveying business has an office on Castle Street where there are also a number of residential flats, said the mound of purple bags has become a regular problem.

"I think they put the rubbish out on the wrong day. The council should tell them the right pick up date.

"At the start of the week there is a couple of bags and they build up during the week, but they’re not due to be collected for another week.

"I have taken photographs of them and it has got to as many as 30 bags and they get ripped open. I also think people from elsewhere are dumping their rubbish there."

Mr Nestorow said the council has previously had to organise an extra collection to clear the pile of purple sacks which are near a side entrance to the Brecon Market Hall.

James Adair, of the militaria shop in Castle Street, where the rubbish bags are piling up alongside, said: "It is an eyesore and it is attracting rats, although I’ve not seen any personally.

"I think more people are leaving their rubbish down there as I don’t think they’ve got the space for the rubbish. The pile seems to have grown and grown and there is more rubbish there than there are flats in the street."

Shirley Anne-Crossman, a volunteer at the Gwynfe Cat Welfare charity shop in Castle Street, said the pile of purple sacks just yards from its door has been building up over the past fortnight - and aren’t due to be collected until July 1.

"The bags have been there for the last two weeks and are attracting rats, I’ve seen them," said Ms Anne-Crossman who said she had also seen people dumping rubbish in the street.

"It is stinking and when we had the hot weather the smell was coming into the shop."

Jean MacLeod, of Brecon, said the rubbish was also an obstruction on the sloping street with narrow pavements.

Ms MacLeod, who said she had previously contacted Brecon and Radnorshire AM Kirsty Williams about the rubbish, said: "I’ve seen people with mobility scooters having to go on to the road to get by. I went into Kirsty Williams’ office and she was very good and came up to see it and was shocked. The last time it really was horrendous."

Kristian Heath, who works in the Timpson shop, said: "This is as bad as I’ve seen it, it’s just not been picked up.

"I saw an old lady have to walk around the rubbish bags."

Labour councillor Matthew Dorrance said he has invited Cllr Barry Thomas, the leader of the independently controlled county council, to walk around Brecon with him.

Cllr Dorrance said the Labour group wants the council to reintroduce fortnightly bin collections.

He said: "It is certainly a problem for urban centres and when you’ve got a cabinet primarily made up of rural members they don’t understand the problems in the urban wards and that’s why I’ve invited the leader to come and walk around Brecon."

The councillor also said the authority should be doing more to educate people about what waste can be recycled and how it should be disposed of.

"You can see through the purple sacks and you can see there is stuff in there that could be recycled," said Cllr Dorrance.

He suggested the council could use spare storage space underneath the Market Hall as a space for waste to be kept.

Meanwhile the latest change to the council’s waste collection service has seen bin men "proactively enforcing" a policy not to collect red recycling boxes containing plastic bags and film the council is unable to recycle.

Jacki Arnold, of Cradoc Close, Brecon, said she was angered to find her red recycling box had been left behind during Monday’s collection.

She said: "I had put the rubbish out as normal but it had a notice on it that they were not taking it away. I thought hang on, we haven’t been told about this."

Ms Arnold said her recycling was left at the roadside as she had placed cat food sachets in the box and the bin men had also refused to empty other boxes on her street.

She said if the council is reducing the material it collects for recycling it should start collecting waste every fortnight again.

"I’ve got two cats and I go through these sachets like water," said Ms Arnold: "If we’ve got to put more stuff in the black bins then the council should pick them up every two weeks not every three weeks."

A council spokesman said it is the responsibility of householders to put their bags out for collection on the correct date.

The council had issued a statement earlier in June warning from June 20 it would would no longer collect red boxes containing stretchy plastic items such as carrier bags, magazine wrappers, food bags, bubble wrap and cling film.

The council said the items couldn’t be recycled and should be thrown out with general waste but as plastic film can be easily compacted it shouldn’t take up much room in wheelie bins or purple sacks.