RESIDENTS are fuming over hospital smokers littering their lane with cigarette butts.

One householder in the street in Carlisle claimed if the smokers involved were fined, no one would have to pay council tax.

The butts are a constant source of annoyance for Margaret Chamberlin, 83, and her neighbours on Clift Street, next to the Cumberland Infirmary, off Newtown Road.

Hospital patients, visitors and staff have lit up in the lane between Clift Street and the hospital since a national ban on smoking both inside and outside NHS hospitals came into force in 2007.

Residents and councillors have raised the issue over the years and although it has improved at times, the situation has never been resolved.

Mrs Chamberlin said: “Why is something not done about the top of the entrance from Clift Street into the hospital grounds?

“It’s absolutely stinking with cigarette ends. There’s not one, there’s hundreds.

“The drains are blocked with them and the rain is washing them down our back lane.”

As well as cigarette butts, Mrs Chamberlin said smokers also discard match boxes and cigarette lighters.

Mrs Chamberlin often walks her miniature dachshund up the street and the lane to the hospital grounds and once had to pull a cigarette end off her dog’s belly.

“That place is disgusting,” she added.

“Absolutely disgusting.

“If they came round there and fined everyone who dropped a cigarette butt we wouldn’t have to pay council tax.”

City councillor Elsie Martlew has taken up the matter on behalf of residents.

She wrote to the hospital’s former chief executive on two occasions asking the hospital to provide a bin for staff to use.

A green bin stands in the hospital grounds at the exit to the lane, though there is not a bin in the lane itself.

“There’s a dustbin stands next to them and they never touch it,” said Mrs Chamberlin.