As Birmingham declared a major incident due to the continued refuse collection strike, members of the community came out in force to clear fly-tipped rubbish from a street corner in the Alum Rock area of the city after it was set fire to on Tuesday evening.

Twenty-five volunteers ferried the waste to a refuse collection point around 100 meters away on Herrick Road.

The refuse collection point had queues amassing as people brought their own wheelie bins and bin bags to dispose of after no collections for weeks.

Community member, Shaukat Mahmood, 53 from Alum Rock arrived at 7am to help clear a huge mountain of waste that was set fire in the evening. He said: ‘Last night at about 11.30pm my wife called me and said there was a fire on the corner.

‘I was worried as there are 4 kids that live in that corner house and the fire could have spread but we called the fire service and they arrived very quickly and put it out.

‘Those who are helping are sick and tired of seeing the rubbish outside their doors, so have come to clear it up.

‘We have just had our EID festival and people came from out of town and we were so embarrassed of our area, we hope for an agreement from Unite and our council.’

Javed Iqbal, 57 also from Alum Rock added: ‘It’s a massive health hazard, a safety factor like the fire that happened.

‘There’s cats and rodents ripping the bags open and seagulls come and pick the food out, it has become a massive misery for the local community.'

ENDS