COUCHES are being thrown into Barrhead rivers as a fly-tipping epidemic sweeps the area.

Concerned residents have contacted The News after more and more abandoned pieces of furniture and rubbish are tipped into waterways and country lanes.

One Neilston man has told of his 41 day battle with East Renfrewshire Council (ERC) to have a country lane tidied up, while another has sent in pictures of a couch and mattress in one of the town’s two waterways.

Lewis Pollock, from Neilston, said: “It is really bad up on the Glennifer Braes, all over the place.

“I’ve had police up from Paisley to look at it but most of it is in East Renfrewshire so they can’t do much there.

“If you drive round the square at Foreside, Mossneuk, Middleton and the caravan park you’ll see lots of fly tipping.

“The new car park where the new tree walk way is.

“Even up towards the new wind turbine on Sergeantlaw road.

“Terrible.”

Mr Pollock said it was more than 41 days after he first reported the dumping ground to East Renfrewshire Council before the mess was dealt with.

A second mess was reported in the town itself.

Kenny Baxter posted the photo of the cream mattress and the single bed mattress lying in the Levern River close to Cogan Street in the centre of Barrhead.

He commented: “Is this what we have to look forward to this summer?”

A spokeswoman for ERC said: “We get reports of fly tipping via either our Customer Service Centre, or online reporting system, and the only recorded recent sighting of an abandoned sofa on Sargeantlaw Road was on Friday, April 15. We subsequently dispatched a team to uplift the item on Friday, April 22.

“There has been no increase in the number of fly-tipping incidents reported in Barrhead or elsewhere in the council area.

“Our community wardens patrol East Renfrewshire for fly tipping/tippers on a daily basis and have the authority to issue offenders with fixed penalty notices, or report more serious incidents to Police Scotland under the terms of the Environmental Act 1990.

“Our street cleaners also have a remit to look out for fly-tipping and we enlist the help of offenders carrying out community service to remove fly-tipping at weekends.”

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