A FARM owner who has lived in the same place for 27 years has resorted to taking his own rubbish to the tip after council binmen stopped collected his rubbish for eight weeks.

Peter Price has lived on a smallholding in Whittington, near Worcester, for that time and had his rubbish collected regularly but two months ago Wychavon District Council stopped collecting his waste.

He said: "One week they didn't empty my bin so I got in touch with them.

"They said they would sort it out. That week the same thing happened again. On the Monday I rang up again and it's been going on week by week."

Each Friday morning Mr Price, from Elms Farm, leaves his black bag of rubbish in his dustbin by his front gate but each evening the bag is still there.

However, his neighbours' rubbish, which is left out in bags just a few yards away, is collected.

He said: "I put it in the dustbin because in the past if I leave it out the foxes get into it and it's a right mess. I don't know, maybe it's the effort of picking up the lid? It's ridiculous. I've been here for nearly 30 years and now they've started this in the last eight weeks."

The retired market gardener said on four occasions a separate crew had collected his rubbish after he had complained but he is now so exasperated he has decided to take his rubbish to Bilford Road tip.

However, the council's waste management officer Mark Edwards said staff were prepared to remove rubbish bags from bins.

He said: "I understand Mr Price's property is hidden behind another property.

"The crew believed it was one property rather than two and now they've been corrected."

He added that the people who had picked up Mr Price's rubbish were not from the same team who usually visited his house.