A WOMAN today slammed 'dirty, smelly' Blackburn after a TV crew was forced to clean up a back street before filming - just days after council officials had been warned to clear it up.

The BBC wanted to film Bertha Warren at the rear of Boland Street, Bastwell, as part of its national coverage of this week's eclipse. Bertha, 89, watched the last eclipse there in 1927.

But she claimed that, although she asked the council to clear rubbish from the back lane before the film crew arrived, they turned up to find the street littered with rubbish and had to move it themselves.

Today, Blackburn with Darwen Council hit back, saying the rubbish had been cleared after Mrs Warren's complaint and that anything found by the film crew must have been dumped after that.

Mrs Warren (inset), of Whalley Road, Langho, returned to the spot behind her former home in Boland Street, where she had watched the 1927 eclipse, a fortnight before the filming was due to take place.

She said she was appalled by what she found. "I was disgusted. The dirt and rubbish there was awful," she said.

Concerned about what the BBC would find, she asked Blackburn with Darwen Council to clean up the mess.

But when the film crew arrived, there was still rubbish in the back lane.

Mrs Warren said: "What a shock. Not one bit of rubbish had been moved. One of the men with us moved some of the filth but they would have had to spend a few hours to make it look decent, so they just had to find a decent place to do the filming.

"So all the BBC crew will remember will be the dirty, smelly Boland Street back. When I lived there it was a place one could be proud of."

A spokeswoman for the council said all streets and back streets of the borough were cleaned on a regular basis.

"Following the telephone call from the lady concerned and in addition to the normal cleaning of the Boland Street area, we arranged for the relevant rubbish to be cleared away.

"Any rubbish in the back street when the film crew arrived must have been dumped after council workers had completed this operation.

"The council operates a 'don't dump it we'll shift it' policy and if residents have household rubbish they want removing, we will take it away within five working days of the request to do so.

"If members of the public see anyone fly-tipping we urge them to contact us immediately to enable us to take steps to prosecute the people concerned."

The programme featuring Bertha will be broadcast on BBC1 on Wednesday from 9.45am.

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