Fly-tippers plague picturesque countryside with 12 incidents in one month
Fly-tippers have been plaguing some of the area's most picturesque countryside, with the contents of a cafe refurbishment, waste from a cannabis farm, and 120 tyres just some of the items dumped in the past month.
Land owned by the Bradford Estates, which sits on the Shropshire and Staffordshire border, has seen 12 incidents in the space of a month.
Robert Paul, estates director, said they were exasperated at the frequency of the problem.
The latest incident, over the Bank Holiday weekend, saw a rural road on Bradford Estates land between Blymhill and Brineton blocked by waste that included a sofa, toys, cardboard and plastic.
“We’ve had at least 12 fly-tipping incidents over the last month alone,” said Mr Paul.
“We’ve always had the odd incident but it’s been worse this summer, we’ve not seen anything to this scale before, especially over the last month.
"We’ve had rubbish dumped two to three times every week.
“The one this weekend was the worst – it was right across the road and cars couldn’t get past it.
"It’s dangerous, thoughtless and irresponsible and we’re getting fed up with it.”
Mr Paul said rubbish had included mattresses, sofas, TVs, toys, household waste, paperwork, building rubble, the contents of a café refurbishment, fridges, a microwave oven, 120 tyres and the waste from a cannabis farm.
He said the estate was working closely with West Mercia and Staffordshire Police, local authorities and residents to tackle the problem, and urged people in the area to be vigilant.
He said: "It seems like it might be someone who knows the area given the areas they’re targeting.
"We’re very close to the motorway, so it could be that people are taking money to clear rubbish, jumping on the motorway, travelling a couple of junctions and dumping the stuff on the estate.
“In addition to working with the police, local councils and farmers, we’re looking into getting permission to install CCTV cameras at spots that are being targeted to deter people from doing it.
“We would urge anyone who has seen anything suspicious or who has any information to call the police.”
Farmer Simon Hayes, who has lived in the area all his life and has farmed the land for the last 44 years, found the latest waste on Monday.
He said: “It’s just been steadily increasing over the last few months.
"I think it’s some unscrupulous person with a tipper advertising rubbish removal services who is collecting people’s waste and then not bothering to dispose of it properly. Instead, they’re dumping it all over the estate.
“They’re quite careful where they dump it, it’s never near any houses and it’s always done at night.
"It’s very frustrating and it would be nice to see a prosecution come from it.”
