A RESIDENT believes not enough is being done to clear Christmas trees for recycling.

Tim Aiton, who lives in Lark Hill in Hangleton, said the recycling area for Christmas trees in Hangleton Park is being overlooked.

The 55-year-old said: “There are so many trees in the designated recycling area now that they have spilled over and you can’t see where the boundary is at all.

“What the council should do is check the recycling areas a few times a week and remove the trees that have accumulated.”

Mr Aiton alleges that trees have been set on fire in the past and put his garage and car at risk.

He said: “A few years ago they did not remove trees quickly enough and some kids set fire to the trees.

“When it happened, someone actually knocked on our door to ask us if we had anything valuable in our garage, as it was so close to the trees and could go up.

“The fire brigade had to be called to extinguish the fire.

“We are worried someone could set fire to them like before.”

Mr Aiton added that traffic has been disrupted in the past when trees have been dragged into the road, and buses had to navigate around them.

He said: “The smaller parks are always overlooked by the council, who seem to only spend time, money and effort in the upkeep of bigger parks like Hove Park, Preston Park and Withdean Park.

“Smaller parks like our park are left to become overgrown, and seem unappealing and unfriendly, as well as unattractive to the local community.

“The council actually added two or three trees to the pile this morning, rather than taking any of them away.

“I phoned them yesterday but nothing has changed.

“We are paying £188 a month in council tax for this privilege and it’s just not good enough.”

A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: ““Every year the council provides 23 Christmas tree recycling drop off points for the benefit of residents who want to dispose of their real trees at the end of the festive period.

“The drop off points are used extremely well and we thank everyone who takes their tree to one of these points to be composted by the council.

“We remove them regularly during and after the festive season to keep the numbers at each site as low as possible.

“However, there’s always a large build up of trees on January 6, what’s called The Epiphany or 12th Night, when most people remove decorations from their trees and take them to the recycling points.

“We have never been notified or in fact heard about a fire at Hangleton Park or any of our Christmas tree recycling drop off points on any of the years we’ve been operating the sites.

“The trees are also normally wet and would be very difficult to set alight, but if anyone has any evidence of fires at any of the sites, they can contact us at cityclean@brighton-hove.gov.uk.”