Record year for dumping rubbish at beauty spots - but only one person goes to court

The Woodland Trust has suffered its worst year on record for fly-tipping, with almost 200 incidents of rubbish dumped in its woods and land - but only one person was taken to court.
A huge pile of fly-tipped rubbish at a beauty spot in Theydon Bois, EssexA huge pile of fly-tipped rubbish at a beauty spot in Theydon Bois, Essex
A huge pile of fly-tipped rubbish at a beauty spot in Theydon Bois, Essex

In what is the only known instance of a fly-tipper being tracked down in the 44-year history of the charity, a culprit was ordered to pay £200 compensation for dumping a coffee table, mattress, bed frame and children’s playhouse at the Little Wold Plantation in East Yorkshire.

The charity has spent £42,596 on clearing up 196 incidents of fly-tipped waste this year, bringing the overall bill for dealing with litter in its woodlands to around £354,000 in 2016.

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Costs are up substantially on last year, when the trust spent £31,360 on tackling fly-tipping, as part of an overall waste clearance bill of £192,000.

Since 2010, the charity’s total rubbish clear-up bill, including routine litter picking and dealing with fly-tipping, has reached more than £1.2 million - money which it says would be better spent on creating new woodlands or protecting ancient woods.

Some of the more bizarre items found fly-tipped include a snooker table, exercise bike, paddling pool, scooters, kitchen worktop and a burnt out wheelie bin.

In one urban woodland, Windmill Hill, near Runcorn, some 280 bags of rubbish have been collected since January, along with bulky items such as mattresses, a fridge and garden fence panels, at a cost of nearly £6,000.

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A young woodland, orchard and wildflower meadow planted by members of the local community at Theydon Bois, Essex, a site that is thought to have once been part of Epping Forest, has been blighted by a huge pile of fly-tipped rubbish.

The Trust said it finds it hard to tackle the problem because of the cost of CCTV and the scale of the land it owns, with more than 1,000 woods covering 55,600 acres across the UK.

Norman Starks, Woodland Trust UK operations director, said: “It’s worrying to see in a world where our woods face constant threats from disease, pests and development that we also have to deal with the actions of mindless individuals.”

Councils have issued hundreds of fines totalling more than £430,000 for fly-tipping since they were given new powers for “on the spot” penalties earlier this year.

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But more than half the English local authorities who responded to a freedom of information request had not used the powers which allow them to issue fixed penalty notices for smaller cases of fly-tipping.

Hull Council issued 12 fixed penalty notices and Bradford ten, but Leeds issued only two and Wakefield none at all.