Who is responsible for this land now?
I can’t believe the mess that’s being made there in such a short space of time.
Can’t even throw unwanted sunday roast potatoes in a bin! Just sling them out the window!!
You’d think if you broke into somewhere you weren’t meant to be, you’d try not to bring too much attention to yourself.
Keep Britain Tidy & Look after the environment and all that.
Seriously NO RESPECT such a shame, if they kept it tidy, and disposed of their rubbish clearance like most people have to do. It would still be illegal taking over land that doesn’t belong to you. But not as annoying to the public, when walking past daily & seeing the mess being made.
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If it’s still owned by portacabin, maybe they can drop a large portacabin across the entrance and set up some security. That would stop any more junk being dumped, and if the portacabin were to be vandalised or damaged, that’s further criminal action to report.
Really though I don’t know why the police can’t take an interest and track the waste pickup and dumping. The photos in this thread a vague evidence taken casually from a passing bus. Surely the professional police force can easily do better with a little effort??
Then fine the travelers £5k for the flytipping, and take away the lorries and vans if they can’t pay. Also fine whoever is silly enough to be paying for this waste to be illegally removed. That’s another £5k.
Then put the money towards the tidy up.
It’s a shame @SgtBiddle doesn’t appear to read these forums anymore. I’d love to understand why more can’t be done, before the rubbish piles end up like this:
And that was on a prison site!!!
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I walked past about an hour ago and it looks like the rubbish is already not far off those levels. Was shocked at how quickly it’s piling up in there.
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I walked past today just as another lorry was driving in. It is not surprising the rubbish is piling up.
My fiancé just walked past and they’ve all gone.
Just left the rubbish & gate open.
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06.40 I walked past. Gate wide open. No caravans but several large piles of rubbish (including a washing machine) blowing around in the wind.
Trashed:
Oddly looks like they dug up the asphalt along the end of the portacabin office which is still there. Perhaps they were looking for electricity as there is a connector further down the portacabin. Or maybe they needed a waste run-off. Eitherway it looks like more unpunished criminal damage.
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They would also need water.
Perhaps it would be useful if local authorities educated the public about why they shouldn’t accept offers of cheap rubbish clearance. If they saw photos of sites like this and saw how the rubbish is just dumped, they might think twice.
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With flytips authorities will search for evidence of its source. If this is general waste I wonder if they can do the same here. Then they can ask for evidence a licensed operator was used. If above board I’m sure receipts were supplied.
Otherwise it’s flytipping by proxy.
And handing waste over to an unlicensed carrier can earn you upto a £5k fine also. If there was any enforcement, that is.
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Does anyone know why the Police couldn’t have simply arrested them for trespass and fly-tipping over the weekend when there was clearly sufficient evidence of both offences? I really don’t understand the law on this - and while it’s some relief that they seem to have left the site, that’s tempered by the knowledge that they’ve simply moved on to another community where the fly-tipping will be repeated.
The police can only intervene if they can prove “aggravated trespass” - so this situation is usually considered a civil / council matter instead. The council must jump through many hoops including monitoring and documenting the situation of the travellers to satisfy the Human Rights Act 1998. So understandably, councils don’t have much appetite or spare bandwidth for this.
In Ireland the law is much stricter and empowers the police to act.
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Regarding flytipping, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious way to report a flytipping crime. I saw some guys in a van leave rubbish on my road and had a photo of the van. I reported it to the Council via their online form ‘report a flytip as crime’ but as far as I could tell it was just reporting a flytip, there was no way of reporting the vehicle. The rubbish was removed promptly by the Council so I can’t complain about that, but I do think unless people get fined for flytipping they will continue to do so.
I believe a lot of people have success with FixMyStreet, and that a lot of councils like Lewisham now rely on this for reports. There is a really handy app, and you submit photos with additional information. They’ll endeavour to keep you up to date on action as well.
But it was through this I also found out the council has limitations. There was a fairly substantial flytip on the stretch of Sunderland Road which is part of the South Circular. But it was on the private part of the shops/properties not on public land. So all the council could do was try to reach out to the property owner. It eventually went but under what circumstance I don’t know.
I presume the same issue will arise with the waste left behind at this site.
Yes I also reported it through Fix My Street and sent the photos and the rubbish was cleared fairly promptly by the Council. But will reporting it through Fix My Street just get the rubbish removed - do the fly tippers themselves face any consequence? Unless the fly tippers actually get fined they’ll carry on doing it. It was a waste removal company that left the waste on my street, so it’s pretty annoying that they are getting paid for removing rubbish, dumping it and the Council pick up the bill for actually disposing of it when Council budgets are already stretched to the limit.
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Actually I don’t know. I have heard tell of council officials looking for clues to the source of the flytip. Some are stupid enough to include envelopes with names and addresses. And since 2016 councils can apply a fixed penalty notice without the need to go to the courts. If they do, they have to have some pretty solid evidence and witness statements which along with CCTV or photos can be helpful.
I guess it depends on whether the effort is worth the price. But as Lewisham spent over 1m in clearing up flytipping last year I would hope they would.
I doubt though anything would be recovered from the sorts who did this mess.
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I doubt that the authorities can collect a fine if they don’t know where these people have gone.
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Somehow I imagine the group will be quickly reported to authorities at their next stop. I don’t think they would be difficult to track down - if there was a will.