AN ABERGAVENNY mum was left outraged after her eight-year-old daughter and friend felt compelled to remove a discarded trolley from the Castle Meadows river bank because of a complete lack of action by Monmouthshire County Council. Bernice Vaughan, her husband Jonathan, and their daughter Millie live in a house overlooking the river Usk and the picturesque Castle Meadows site which will host the 2016 Eisteddfod. Bernice told the Chronicle, "A couple of weeks ago a group of youths were having a party down the river -drinking and cooking food on a fire. When they had finished partying they decided to load up a Tesco trolley they had accquired from somewhere with all their glass bottles, food wrappers etc. They then pushed the trolley down on the river bank, spilling rubbish everywhere." Appalled, Bernice's husband Jonathan contacted MCC by telephone and also filled in an online form pointing the council in the exact location of the rubbish - 300 metres along the path from the entrance at Llanfoist Bridge. In Bernice's words, "The council didn't appear overly concerned" and somewhat distressingly for the Vaughan family, they waited a whole three weeks but received no further response or action on behalf of the council. Sick of looking at the rubbish whilst playing in their gardens, Bernice's eight-year-old daughter Millie with the help of her eight-year-old neighbour, Eve, decided to do what MCC seemingly couldn't or wouldn't do, and took action! With the help of dad Jonathan the two civic-minded youngsters removed the trolley from the river bank and walked it to the bin at the Llanfoist Bridge entrance, where, "hopefully the council would remove it." Bernice told the Chronicle, "When my husband phoned the council he got passed through to three different departments. They tried to fob him off with saying as it was in the river it would be environmental and that they were not responsible. We then informed them that it was not in the river but on the bank and they said they would get someone to take a look." Bernice added, "What I want to know is if it wasn't for my children would the trolley still be there? And why does it take the council so long to act? The Chronicle contacted MCC with Mrs Vaughan's concerns and asked if they were concerned that it would appear two eight-year-old girls seem to care more about our environment than MCC? The council replied in a statement, "We need to be clear that it is not Monmouthshire County Council that is dropping litter or fly tipping. It is, however, our responsibility to clear up the rubbish left by the minority of citizens that believe it's acceptable to dump waste in public spaces. And, of course, cleaning up the waste is financed by tax payers. We carry out a full litter pick on Castle Meadows twice a week. We can't find any record of a report being made about rubbish and a shopping trolley being left by the Usk. The ultimate responsibility for clearing this mess should lie with the people that made it. But we applaud the actions of your readers in clearing it up and assure people that we will deal with any illegally dumped waste that comes to our attention." Early last week, the Chronicle was notified of yet another discarded Tesco trolley. This time the offending article was littering the vicinity of another of Abergavenny's renowned beauty spots - Bailey Park. We duly notified the council of the problem, who said, "This latest picture is another example of members of the public dumping waste and it being photographed before we can remove it, at the taxpayers' expense. we're grateful that this has been brought to our attention. It has now been disposed of." Unfortunately the trolleys returned with a vengeance on Sunday morning.

If you've any pictures of any areas in the local vicinity that are a sore sight for sore eyes, then please send them in, and hopefully together we can make the Abergavenny and it's picturesque environs a more attractive area for all.

And now for the council's ..... 'rubbish' response

LAST Thursday a number of MCC's staff took industrial action and went on strike. This resulted in a number of Abergavenny residents complaining to the Chronicle that their rubbish/food waste wasn't picked up on perhaps one of the hottest days of the year.  The main grievance of many readers appears to be not that the council workers took full advantage to excercise their democratic right to strike in the first place but that Monmouthshire tax-payers were not notified that there would be no refuse collection before putting their rubbish out. The Chronicle asked MCC why they thought no such communication was necessary and they replied, "We're sorry that we were unable to carry out a waste collection in parts of north Monmouthshire on Thursday 10th July  Despite the planned industrial action, we had fully intended to run a waste collection service throughout Monmouthshire. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do this in the north of the county. Sufficient staff in the borough had indicated to us that they would be working and we planned a normal day's waste collections on that basis. However, as is their right, staff based at the Llanfoist depot opted on the day to join the industrial action. We didn't know this until the morning of the strike, or we'd have told people earlier in the same way that we were able to do with those services that we knew would be affected by industrial action.  It is entirely false to suggest that we didn't tell anyone or that we did not feel it necessary to tell them. But given the short notice we were limited in what we could do,  so we utilised the communication methods available to us: Our web site, social media, One stop shops, broadcasters We also informed our elected members. It's worth noting that these are the same communication channels that we'd use in the event of any unforeseen disruption to services. There isn't anything else that would have reached the affected people on time.  n terms of collecting the waste that was left out on Thursday, waste that will begin to smell – including general refuse, trade waste, nappies and food and garden waste was collected as a priority on Friday July 11."