RUBBISH bags littering the streets of Okehampton over the Christmas period have angered the town's liaison manager Sidney Thompson.

He said for a town that relied heavily on attracting tourists all year round, the community was very careless about the image it projected.

'There were unsightly piles of rubbish bags everywhere you looked and this was despite the fact that West Devon Borough Council made a good effort to advise people that there would be no rubbish collection between Christmas and the New Year holiday,' he said.

'It is about time a by-law was created to make it an offence to put out rubbish other than on the morning of collection.'

Mr Thompson, from Okehampton OK!, said one location of serious misuse was the area at the St James' Street entrance to The Arcade which had become the pick-up point for rubbish for the arcade traders and flats above the shops.

'The problem is that many additional deposits of rubbish bags and general refuse get dumped there at all times by people near and far,' he added.

'Just last week two people were witnessed unloading a large piece of broken window glass from a car and slipping it behind the pile.

'Why do these "fly tippers" believe that their rubbish can be dumped on other people's environment?'

Sealing rubbish bags would prevent the contents being strewn all over the road, as many items had ended up in the river, said the town liaison manager, particularly polystyrene foam packing bits.

'When we complain to the council that the refuse collectors leave a residual mess when collecting, let's look to ourselves to make the job easier by securing the bags well,' he said.

'Please take charge of the management of your own refuse until the authorities take it away and bury it for you. Let's improve our town streetscape by keeping unsightly on-street rubbish to a minimum.'

Arcade trustee Janet Voaden said there had been a problem with people dumping their rubbish outside the Victorian arcade for many years but shopkeepers were at a loss to know what to do about it.

'It is our responsibility but all we can do is ask people not to dump bags there if we see them and that is not very often because we are all busy working in the shops,' she said.

'People are abusing the system and it looks absolutely awful.'

Mrs Voaden said she hoped people would take notice of their concerns especially as traders were doing all they could to refurbish the arcade for the benefit of the town.