FRUSTRATED Alan Turner cannot sell his £125,000 house — because of traffic problems caused by a new rubbish dump opposite the property.

Retired Mr Turner, who is now a part-time DJ, lives across the road from the household waste recycling centre, which opened in Salford Road, Over Hulton, last autumn.

In April he told The Bolton News about problems occurring at weekends with large traffic jams forming along Salford Road because cars were queuing, waiting for the centre to open.

At the time he raised fears of the situation worsening as the weather improves — concerns he now says have been realised.

He said: “I have actually had to take my house off the market because of the situation caused by this monstrosity — there is a constant flow of traffic and huge queues at weekends.

“I actually had people come to look around and they took one look at the site across the road and wouldn’t even come inside. There are also smells that waft over from the centre which can put my garden out of use.

“I have photographed ambulances having to cross the carriageway into oncoming traffic in order to get through — it is totally unacceptable.

“There are double yellow lines on the access road to this site and yet police and traffic wardens are doing nothing about it.”

The new centre opened following the closure of a smaller recycling facility in Blackrod, along with six others across Greater Manchester by the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA).

The centre currently opens at 10am at weekends and after meeting with residents, GMWDA believes that extending the opening hours to an earlier point could help to solve the problem of queuing traffic.

A spokesman said: “Due to this centre opening later than our others, members of the public are turning up before the 10am opening time and that is creating queues on the road.

“Our site operator, Viridor is doing all it can to minimise the impact however staff cannot let cars onto the site, as tipping before 10am would breach the planning conditions.

“After meeting with residents, we feel that changing the opening times of Salford Road, to the standardised opening hours that apply to all of our other centres which are 8am to 8pm in summer and 8am to 6pm in winter, would eliminate queuing prior to the site opening.”

The authority has now written to all local residents asking for their preference.

If the idea of earlier opening times is well received then an approach could be made to Bolton Council to ask for a change in the planning permission hours restrictions.

Mr Turner said he did not think the idea would work.

He said: “It might work in the first instance but when people realise the new opening time they will start coming before then and queues will form again — the best option would be to allow cars to enter through the current exit at the centre and leave through the current entrance.”