Opinion : Is there something worse than fly tipping on public land?

No doubt everyone has seen the plethora of articles that appear in the news section of this site about fly tipping.

Indeed recently an article appeared entitled ‘Fly tipping increases in the south of Buckinghamshire‘ which, as the headline suggests, shows that perhaps the battle against the fly tippers may be being lost?

Fly tipping is one of the biggest menaces facing our society today. Only a short while ago, while partaking in my regular lunchtime walk around Wycombe Town centre, I found my good self in the Green Street area of town.

To my horror one of the fly tipping rascals had been at work leaving a pile of old mattresses on the pavement as can be seen in the picture that heads up this blog as well as the picture below.

A few days later the rubbish was cleared only for more to return in the same spot.

Not only is dumping rubbish anti-social it’s also a crime when dumped on public land. The problem is a national issue, however some unscrupulous fly tippers resort to dumping rubbish on private rather than public land.

A major national news website recently carried an article entitled ‘Fly-tipping: What can you do with rubbish dumped on your land?‘. Sadly it seems that not much can be done if the waste is dumped on private land.

If you read the information given at the previous link you will see that the Environment Agency will investigate any rubbish dumped on private land that is ‘larger than a tipper load‘ however for their teams to get involved the minimum amount of waste dumped needs to be at least twenty tonnes.

Those who dump the waste on public land must be the biggest idiots around, after all they risk prosecution and a criminal record but if they had dumped their load on private land they would have most likely got away with it.

Now don’t think my good self is supporting the dumping of rubbish on private land, not at all. Indeed as far as yours truly is concerned rubbish should be taken to the tip, or other proper place, for disposal.

However, if the mattresses and other rubbish shown in the picture on this blog had been simply tipped over someone’s front fence into their garden the perpetrators would have got away scot free.

And there in lies the problem. The laws are useless. Fly tipping on private land is far worse than fly tipping on public land because the poor landowner has to clear it all up, unless its more than twenty tonnes of waste.

While the powers that be are busy clamping down on waste fly tipped on public land a whole new generation of scumbags is going around dumping their waste on private land.

It’s about time the law was changed so the municipal authorities also have to deal with and clear up waste fly tipped on private land. Why should innocent home owners have to pay to get rid of someone else rubbish?

My good self has, in the past, had problems with rubbish fly tipped on my private land in some of the more remote areas of my own estate. It’s not nice having to get rid of someone else’s rubbish. At one point there was so much waste dumped that yours truly even had to pay for a skip to dispose of it all.

Surveillance cameras now gaze continually onto the furthest most edges of the land on my private estate ready to record any fly tippers in the act. Thankfully your humble servant has not been blighted by dumped waste for a while now, at least not since the cameras and notices were installed.

So next time you are woken by noises in the night be sure to look out your window in case a couple of yobbos are unloading waste from a lorry into your front garden. It will be you who has to get rid of it….

What do you think?

My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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