As fallen leaves pile up in roads, footpaths and gutters across Wagga, calls are being made for the city to upgrade its leaf clearing service.
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Tatton resident Mick Foxall said his street has been littered with leaves since the start of autumn, with many clumped in gutters and slowly decomposing.
"The leaves are just really heavy in the gutters at the moment and I haven't seen the street sweepers since summer," he said.
Mr Foxall's main concern is that a huge amount of leaves are being flushed into the city's stormwater system, eventually ending up in Lake Albert and exacerbating the blue-green algae issue.
He and his neighbours have taken it upon themselves to clear the leaves as much as they can, but many are elderly and rely on the council's seemingly-absent leaf clearing trucks.
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Wagga City Council currently operates two street sweeper units, which clear leaves and litter from gutters across the city every morning.
Warren Faulkner, the council's director of infrastructure services, said the trucks follow a schedule based off years of experience, with a focus on streets with the most leaves.
"This schedule is balanced against customer requests to cover as much as possible while the leaves are thick on the ground and it is quite an amount of work to cover in a short period of time," he said.
"Council acknowledges that this schedule may not work for everyone, so if you have a specific request please don't hesitate to log a request with our staff."
The council did not confirm or deny whether there had been any recent reduction in the city's street sweeping services, but many residents are convinced their streets are being cleared less often.
Colleen Hyland lives on Edward Street and has noticed a significant increase in the number of leaves she is clearing this year - which she fears could lead to an injury.
"All the leaves are falling onto the footpath so if we don't clean them up ourselves every week it gets really slippery and someone is going to fall and hurt themselves," she said.
"They're not doing the street sweeping as much either which means when it rains, the gutters aren't cleaned properly and the road overflows with water."
Another resident, who lives on Peter Street and asked to remain unnamed, described the current leaf situation as "terrible" and said it was an issue the council needed to address.
He said he understood there was only so much ground the two street sweeping trucks could cover each morning, but suggested there were other ways the council could help lower the number of leaves.
"They could come along and get the trees trimmed and that would help the lead problem," he said.
"I grew up on this street and they used to come along and lop these trees every season."
Mr Faulkner encouraged residents to dispose of leaves on their properties through their green waste bins, rather than sweeping them onto footpaths or roads.
He said the piles of leaves can cause issues for others and slow down the process for the street sweeper, as the driver has to scatter them so the truck can process them.
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