WHEN Adam Twidell passed a load of fast food wrappers outside a St Albans pub he was so disgusted at the sight he contacted the district council s litter line. But Adam, 37, of Ramsey Close, St Albans, was less than delighted with the response he got to h

WHEN Adam Twidell passed a load of fast food wrappers outside a St Albans pub he was so disgusted at the sight he contacted the district council's litter line.

But Adam, 37, of Ramsey Close, St Albans, was less than delighted with the response he got to his email.

He said: "Having recently entered into my Blackberry the email address for reporting rubbish, I reported the mess."

After an hour he heard back that his complaint about the mess outside The Horn on the corner of Victoria Street and Alma Road had been logged and the site would be inspected in the next few days to assess the scale of the problem after which a contractor would be notified to pick up the litter.

He said: "As a suggestion, can the street cleaning department not believe a local resident who has taken the time to send an email reporting litter in a busy area of St Albans? Better still why not cut out the middle man and make sure the emails go directly to the contractors?"

He was so frustrated that he thought it would be easier for him to simply pick up the rubbish himself on his way back home.

But commonsense eventually prevailed - he received a second reply apologising for the first and saying that the writer was new to the job and was undergoing more training.

A spokesperson for the district council said: "What actually happened was a message was sent to our monitoring officers who spoke to the contractors to let them know there was a problem. This was passed to the person who cleans the area and the litter was cleared up."

She said it was cleaned every day by a person dedicated to that area.

Mr Twidell said he was pleased to know his efforts had not been in vain and would not let it put him off contacting a.cleanerdistrict@stalbans.gov.uk again.