MORE than 200 people living on a private caravan park are angry because their individual rubbish pick ups are set to be cancelled without consultation.

The residents of Dunton Park in Lower Dunton Road, many of whom are elderly and disabled, are irate because they have always had their refuse collected from their doorstep.

In May they received letters from site owner Pam Purcell saying the service would be ending for “health and safety reasons” and that residents who didn’t feel able to get to the communal bins would have to get friends or neighbours to help.

Residents Audrey Price, 77, and Pat Jones, 65, became concerned for their neighbours who they knew couldn’t deal with disposing of their own rubbish and they launched a petition opposing the action and they got in contact with Basildon MP John Baron.

Mrs Jones, who has lived on the park since 1993 with her husband, said: “This has been going on for months and we really feel like we have hit a brick wall.

"The rubbish pick up is what has always happened on the site and it is on our rent card.

“The owner has a moral obligation to uphold this agreement, it is unfair it should just stop for no good reason. We just want a service like we have always had.

“There is no way the disabled and elderly people on the site would be able to get to a communal rubbish bins, we are all distressed and just need a resolution.”

Basildon Council has sent a list of options to the site manager explaining what the costings are which the site manager has chosen to pass onto residents.

Residents would be charged an additional £145 per mobile unit if the council were to do a kerb side pick up.

John Dornan, who is a ward councillor for Laindon Park and has responsibility for the environment, who said the site owner should up hold the kerb side collection which has been in place for years.

The Echo made several attempts to contact Mrs Purcell and she chose not to make a comment.

A Basildon Council spokesman, added: "It is Basildon Council's responsibility to collect refuse and recycling from an agreed central collection point within Dunton Park caravan park, which we do weekly.

“Dunton Park is private property and we cannot decide what level of service the site management offers to its residents above and beyond what the council provides. That is their responsibility to decide upon and arrange.

"We have however provided some advice and ideas that the park's management company have used to consult its residents and the council will assist with the outcome of that consultation where it can.

“Some of these ideas would mean a charge to the management company and if they decide to pass this onto their residents then that is a decision for them.

“The council will continue to provide the existing level of service until the Dunton Park management advise us that they wish to change it."