Rubbish strewn across the site or piled up in uncollected bags, rats and overgrown paths at the closed Oasis Leisure Centre site are causing anger.

Josie Lewis is a member of Keep Swindon Tidy and says even after dozens of bags of rubbish were collected just a few months ago by campaigners, the site in North Star is in a terrible state.

Touring the land around the closed leisure centre with Rodbourne Cheney ward councillor Jim Grant and the Adver, Ms Lewis pointed out a distressing amount of rubbish.

She said: “The bins in the car parks are overflowing and the bags in them are not new, the bins haven’t been emptied. The litter is overflowing out of them and just lying everywhere.”

Although Swindon Borough Council owns the lands on which the centre stands, developer Seven Capital took a 99-year lease on the centre six years ago, making it the effective owner.

But Ms Lewis still believes the council has some responsibility for clearing up the trash.

Coun Grant said: “The roads in the car park have double yellow lines on them – that means they are the public highway and therefore the borough council has responsibility for keeping them clean.

Ms Lewis added: “Neither the council or Seven Capital seem to be taking any responsibility for cleaning up the site, and one or both of them should be doing better on this.”

Swindon Borough Council insists the  responsibility for keeping the site clean and tidy and taking away rubbish lies with Seven Capital.

The lack of action has frustrated Ben Bell of Plastic Free Swindon, who organised a major litter-picking efforts in the early part of the year which collected dozens of bags of rubbish.

He said: I think  both the council and Seven Capital think it’s okay to leave the site like this. I know Seven Capital has a responsibility in its lease to take reasonable care of the grounds of the centre and I think it clearly isn’t.”

Paths between the site and the nearby New College Swindon campus are badly overgrown and rats are visible during the day.

Students from the college’s North Star campus use the site as a place to spend free time in the day or as a route in and out of the college.

One, Megan Vetch, said: “It’s just how Swindon is really. We don’t use the route after dark and I don’t think it’s unsafe. It’s just how it is.”

A Seven Capital spokesperson has previously said: “We are in the process of appointing a contractor to cut hedges, do a general tidy up and empty litter bins in a couple of weeks’ time.”