ANGRY residents have criticised a council for refusing to collect bins unless they are placed right on the kerbside.

Darlington Borough Council has introduced the new kerbside collections to cut costs and plough the savings into recycling schemes.

But residents were left fuming this week, when binmen refused to take their rubbish.

John Hewitt of Auckland Avenue said: "This is absolutely disgraceful. They're doing this to everybody in the street and it's just for the sake of two feet.

"All the bin bags are supposed to be placed at the kerbside, but if we put them there the kids are going to trip over them or they could fall into traffic.

"People have been putting them against their walls and they're refusing to pick them up."

Mother-of-two Julie Bramham said residents of Heathfield Park in Middleton St George had experienced the same problem.

She said: "I have to walk my children to school. Why should we endanger our children by making them walk on the road? And what if somebody falls over them or gets knocked over?"

Malcolm Guy of Princess Road, Darlington, said: "I put my bins out on the kerbside, but my neighbour wanted to be considerate to pedestrians and left his bags on the end of the drive.

"My bins were collected, and his weren't. It's ridiculous."

A spokeswoman for the council said: "This is only the third week of the new kerbside collection system, so it's still in its early days. We have had one or two instances of residents not putting bins out at the correct place.

"We have put two informative leaflets out and a few residents are not following the information.

"Where the rubbish hasn't been put in the correct place on the first collection run, it won't be collected but another leaflet will be placed through that door to tell them where to place the rubbish."

She added that consultation with groups representing disabled people revealed that placing bin bags next to a wall was more of a hazard than leaving it at the kerbside.

She said: "If we continue to let people do this, the borderline gets further towards the property and it defeats the whole object of the system where time is saved by picking up rubbish from the kerbside."