AN Andover councillor has sent a damning letter to bosses at Tesco demanding action over the continual dumping of trolleys from its River Way store.

Test Valley Borough Councillor Garry Rankin-Moore says the outskirts of Andover is a 'mess' with abandoned trolleys and its nature areas are being despoiled.

At the beginning of February, the Andover Advertiser highlighted the situation and got assurances from River Way store manager Trevor Osgood that the problem would soon be resolved.

But Mr Rankin-Moore says nothing has changed.

"They're totally indifferent to it all and I'm not going to hold my breath this time," he said. "I have been trying to get something done about this problem for the last ten years and after the story appeared in the Andover Advertiser in February, I really thought Tesco would be shamed into taking some action.

"Enough is enough now. All I get is excuse after excuse and no response to letters, phone calls or visits," he added. But Tesco is adamant it is concerned about the problem and is taking action.

A spokesman for the company said: "We have an infra-red system on many of the trolleys in store which stops them being taken past the car-park boundary.

"Unfortunately, it's not on all the trolleys but this will be updated from next week.

"With the recent building works in store, this infra-red system has been disrupted and so the problem has been worse over the past few months," he said.

"Once it is running throu-ghout the store anyone wanting to take a trolley off our premises will have to lift it over their heads, so we're confident the number of stolen trolleys will decrease.

"We do try and do our best to fetch trolleys back regularly and customers can call Tesco Customer Service to report abandoned trolleys on freephone 0800 505555," he added.