Sofas, chairs, bags of rubbish - but Shropshire fly-tippers avoid paying the penalty

It is a blight on our countryside – but no culprits have been brought to book in the county.

Shropshire Council and Telford & Wrekin Council represent more than half the English local authorities who responded to a Freedom of Information request which had not used the powers which allow them to issue fixed penalty notices for smaller cases of fly-tipping.

It comes as figures show councils have issued hundreds of fines totalling more than £430,000 for fly-tipping since they were given the new powers.

Shropshire Council said many individuals have received written warnings for various environmental crimes when witnessed by council officers and that fixed penalty notices would only be issued after further investigation.

Telford & Wrekin Council said it had issued scores of fines for littering and dog fouling over the past year and would look to make use of the new legislation for fly-tipping over the coming months.

In May, the Government gave local authorities the power to issue fines of between £150 and £400 to those caught in the act of fly-tipping, instead of having to take them to court, as part of efforts to crack down on waste crime.

Fly-tipping has been on the rise in the past few years, with 900,000 incidents in 2014/2015, the most recent year for which figures are available, and councils spending £50 million on clear-up costs and £17 million on enforcement action.

Last year it was revealed more than 800 complaints of fly-tipping had been made in Shrewsbury in just three years.

The figures offer a snapshot into the problems of fly-tipping in the county. Goods have previously been dumped in areas such as Clee Hill and Newport.

Last month large leather sofas greeted visitors to Clee Hill as an unknown fly-tipper offloaded them next to the Titterstone car park. Tyres and building material are among the latest rubbish that have been left on The Wrekin recently.

Mal Price, Shropshire Council's cabinet member for the environment, said: "Many individuals have received written warnings for various environmental crimes when witnessed by Shropshire Council officers, which is the level of enforcement used before the possibility of a fixed penalty notice being issued. This approach is consistent with the council's enforcement policy and is, in the main, an appropriate and proportionate response to such matters.

"Such a written warning will often change an individual's behaviour and reduce the likelihood of them re-offending in the future, which is the main intention behind any enforcement action taken by the council.

"Fixed penalty notices are not issued automatically for an identified breach, and will only be issued after a proper assessment of all the circumstances."

Councillor Hilda Rhodes, Telford & Wrekin Council's cabinet member for public protection, safety and enforcement, said: "Last year, Telford & Wrekin Council issued 67 fixed penalty notices for littering and dog fouling offences and two cases are pending prosecution.

"This year, working and supporting the Keep Britain Tidy campaign and fly tipping action plan, #CrimeNoToCare, we will be actively looking to use the new fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping which will allow us to issue fines of up to £400.

Of the 302 councils with responsibility for tackling fly-tipping who responded to the FOI request, 118 had handed out fixed penalty notices. Use of the powers ranged from issuing just one fine to more than a hundred in some areas, for illegally dumping items such as furniture, old fridges, bags of rubbish and garden waste.

In total, town halls had handed out 1,353 fixed penalties since May, the figures show.

But 184 councils had not issued any, with many having not yet put the new rules in place or saying they were in the process of doing so.

Newham, London, which had the worst problem with fly-tipping in 2014/2015 with more than 70,000 instances, has used the new powers most, issuing 135 fixed penalty notices with a total value of £54,000.

Trunk road revealed as dumping ground for retired greyhounds

It's not just rubbish that is left on the county lanes – one trunk road has become a dumping ground for dogs.

Hayley Bradley, of Gobowen, formed a rescue charity when she discovered the A5 was a hot spot for abandoned greyhounds as it is on the corridor from Holyhead, where many retired racing dogs came in from Ireland and the West Midlands.

The charity expecting to care for scores of the dogs while new homes are found for them at the start of the year and is drumming up funds. She said: "Racing greyhounds are retired if they are old or injured. If they can't be sold on many will simply be abandoned.

"The people who have them find a nice stretch of A5 and they dump them out. We're here to mop up the pieces."

Hayley first became involved in helping greyhounds in 2002 when she took one on called Hector, who inspired the charity's name, caring for him until he died.

She then met a couple who ran a greyhound rescue project and rescued Hector, who she looked after for the rest of his life

had. when she was at the vets with her dog, a St Bernard called Ollie.

She said: "I came across a retired couple who ran a greyhound rescue project.

"They were holding an emaciated black greyhound who looked so sad. His coat was dull and dirty and he had cuts on his toes from urine burns.

"I volunteered to help the couple with their rescue and was hooked.

She looked after the greyhound, Hector for the rest of his life.

Now the charity that carries his name takes in injured and abandoned greyhounds.

"They can arrive with all sorts of problems, thin and emaciated, often with skin conditions or health worries," Hayley said.

"We find them foster homes or use a local boarding kennel – sometimes a special isolation area if they have certain conditions.

"Our aim is to nurse them back to health and find them forever homes."

"Fundraising is a continuing task. The people of Oswestry are so generous. We raised an amazing £957 at Oswestry's Christmas Live and our Christmas Fair at Oswestry Memorial Hall."

She said Greyhounds made wonderful pets as they are affectionate, calm and quiet.

She added: "Greyhounds are playful animals, however racing Greyhounds are taught to chase small furry things. This means you may have to look out for small dogs walking off their lead, and be aware that the sighting of a squirrel may result in some excitement.

" This doesn't mean Greyhounds can't become part of a happy home that includes other, smaller dogs or even cats.

"Although they are able to run at great speeds, they prefer to recline and reflect. They only need two, 20- 30 minute walks a day."

More details are available are available are available from hectorsgreyhoundrescue.org

Woodland Trust’s worst year for rubbish blight

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.

The charity, which has dozens of sites across Shropshire, 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.

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 burned 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 and a fridge at a cost of nearly £6,000.

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.

Just one fly-tipper was taken to court this year by the Woodland Trust, in what is the only known instance of a fly-tipper being tracked down in the 44-year history of the charity. The culprit was ordered to pay £200 compensation for dumping a coffee table, mattress, bed frame and children's playhouse at Little Wold Plantation, Yorkshire.

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.

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."