BUSINESS owners in Leamington are fed up with having to tackle an obstacle course of vomit and urine when they arrive for work.
Traders operating in the Covent Garden Market walkway in the town centre say Warwick District Council is not taking their complaints seriously and are demanding action.
Drunken revellers regularly use the alleyway linking the car park and Warwick Street as an outside toilet and to be sick.
Mick Drake and Steve Price – who own Smoke No Smoke and the Grub Hub respectively – have been in an ongoing battle with the council about the state of the alley for over a month now. They say the problem is particularly bad following Tuesday and Saturday nights.
The businessmen say when they ring the council department responsible for street cleaning they are told the walkway has been cleaned – but they claim there is clear evidence it has not been done.
So fed up are they, and concerned customers will be put off from visiting the tattoo studio, beauty salon, vape shop and sandwich shop by the smell and mess, they have even reluctantly taken to cleaning it up themselves.
Steve, who runs the sandwich shop, said: “We pay our council tax, and more than enough in business rates to be here, why can’t that money be used to clean away urine and sick?
“I complained to environmental health when they came out to give me my five-star hygiene rating but still contract services have done nothing.”
Mick is equally adamant the council should be doing more.
He added: “They keep telling us it has been done and we have to tell them is hasn’t.
“It got to the point where there’s that much sick and urine in the alley we started phoning the council on a daily basis.”
Warwick District Council has said the walkway is ‘an adopted highway’ which means it is owned and maintained by Warwickshire County Council but cleaned by the district council.
The district council maintained the walkway was cleaned on a daily basis between 7am and 9am.
