RUBBISH littering the River Tavy following works by the Environment Agency has not been removed since the summer, a local resident this week claimed.
Martin Hunter, who regularly walks his dog along the Mary Tavy footpath towards Peter Tavy, said pieces of white builders' sacks and pipe were making the river and riverbank unsightly — yet nothing had been done, despite reporting the matter to the contractors.
The Environment Agency's river improvement scheme at Hill Bridge is part of an initiative to improve the ecology of the River Tavy and protect salmon stocks.
Mr Hunter said: 'I had a word with the people working down there but they were trying to get their work done and did not seem very interested in clearing up the mess.
'It would only have taken ten minutes to walk down the footpath and see this huge piece of pipe and all sorts of other rubbish.
'Being the Environment Agency, it seems very strange that its priority is not to keep things clean and tidy.'
The resident said as time went on the sandbags were getting tangled up in branches as the river rose and fell and making more of a mess.
He had sent e-mails to the Environment Agency but had not received a reply.
Construction project manager at the Environment Agency, Dave Issleib, said: 'We have recently been made aware of the problem and would like to apologise.
'The material is actually the remnants of large sand bags which we have been using to dam the river, so that we can work on the fish pass.
'Unfortunately, due to the recent bad weather, these bags have literally been ripped apart by the force of the water, and washed down stream.
'We are in the process of clearing them up.'