A FAMILY blighted by drivers who leave mounds of rubbish and human excrement outside their house say they have had enough.

Amy Tayler lives next to the layby on the A350 heading towards Chippenham from the M4 Junction 17 and said the amount of rubbish left behind by drivers is a nuisance to her family.

Drivers have been using the layby to sleep in and as an open air toilet, although her family home is only a few metres away.

When the 31-year-old walks outside her door with her two children, Faith, 12, and Lola, seven, they see rats, the huge piles of rubbish and human waste, and can’t understand why no one wants to help them.

“I have lived here for 10 years,” Mrs Tayler explained.

“When I first moved here the layby was in good use. There was a snack van there and lorry drivers came and had their food and the people running the snack van kept it nice and tidy.

“But they left and over the space of the last six years there has been a build-up of noise and people leaving rubbish.

“Now, lorry drivers just see it as a free place to stop and are leaving all their rubbish behind.

“We have to constantly maintain it. It has become such a burden on us.”

Kate is angry and upset that although Wiltshire Council has put bins in the layby, to try and help contain the rubbish, they are not on a regular collection round and so are not emptied unless she makes a complaint or resorts to clearing up the mess herself.

Bin lorries pull into the layby to collect her home’s rubbish, but leave the bins for public use overflowing.

“We walk across the layby to get to Kington Langley. I walk through it with my children and we see puddles of wee and poo, bottles of wee that have been thrown out and dumped in the ditch,” she said.

“It seems really unfair that we have to live by it. I don’t think people realise there is a house there.

“The council puts bins in place but there is no collection day for these.

“They put them in about three years ago and it has been non-stop complaining to the council.

“My kids can’t understand why people don’t want to talk to us about this.

“They see bottles of wee on the roads and someone has to be responsible.

“That can’t be up to us to be picking it up all the time.”

Nigel Heath, of the nearby Chippenham Pit Stop trucker’s cafe, who has campaigned for better facilities for drivers, said: “All of our drivers come straight in off the M4 along to the Pit Stop, there is no need for them to use a layby.

“Drivers shouldn’t be staying in the layby and they shouldn’t be dropping any rubbish.

A spokesman for Wiltshire Council said: “This year we will spend over £2.5 million collecting litter, from areas including laybys. This money could be saved if people disposed of their waste responsibly and legally. Regrettably more and more litter is deposited and we will continue to spend money to collect this – money that could be spent on vital services."

“As a council we are trying to get the word out far and wide through our CleanUpWilts campaign that we all need to do our bit, and we’d be happy to speak to anyone who would like to help us with this, and grateful for any support. We thank any member of the community who goes out of their way to collect rubbish.”