Madam, After contacting Herefordshire Council about the state of the footpath running along side the Larruperz Centre I was repeatedly getting fobbed off so I contacted my MP.

Within a week the council had carried out a site inspection with me and agreed that the area needed cleaning. The person carrying out the inspection said he would contact Amey Wye Valley Street Scene and get the clean up done. They agreed that it would be done in the week leading up to Christmas. It was not done.

I left it a further week after the Christmas break and finding it still not done again contacted the council, who said after contacting the contractors again that it would be done.

I then found that only one piece of the large rubbish had been taken away and again contacted the council and told them about this. They said the area would be cleaned, but once again only one piece of large rubbish was taken away.

This time when I contacted the council I asked the question, 'Have the contractors submitted an invoice for the work, as they had not done a proper clean up of all the small litter ie cans, bottles, paper, plastic bags etc or were they working to a council agreed standard which did not include small litter?'

The latest response from the council is that this piece of land is not in council ownership. For as long as I can remember the council has cleaned this area so why have they only just questioned the ownership?

What I do know is that on two occasions the council has sent its contractors to clean the site and it has not been properly cleaned, and the contractors will be paid. Is this value for our very expensive rates?

This is now the beginning of the eighth month since I first contacted them. The leader of the council has known about it for the whole of that time, the head of department knows about it, the contractors know about it, yet no-one can manage to get 200 yards of footpath cleaned up.

It didn't take this council eight months to cover up archaeology known as The Rotherwas Ribbon, it didn't take eight months to cut down a 130 year old tree

But eight months and the intervention of an MP and 200 yards of footpath has still not been cleaned, what a mess this council is in.

Mr G Andrews, Ross