Thirteen tonnes of fly-tipping has been cleared from an embankment on the A329M, by a team working on behalf of Wokingham Borough Council.
Working from the hard shoulder of the motorway, the team spent a week removing the five tonnes of dumped car tyres and eight tonnes of general litter. The clearance was timed to avoid morning and evening rush hours to minimise disruption on surrounding roads.
The clean-up is part of the borough council’s crackdown on illegal fly-tipping. This crackdown involves ensuring residents and businesses (including home-based ones) understand it is their own legal responsibility to ensure their waste is disposed of correctly. Fly-tipping nationally has increased.
Localities officers from the council have also been visiting local businesses to check they are complying with waste disposal laws. More than a hundred have so far been visited. Thirty seven of these have been issued notices to provide the correct documents within 14 days proving they are getting rid of their waste correctly. Failure to respond within this time means a £300 fixed penalty notice. Six businesses have so far received this.
“We know most people take their responsibility to dispose of their waste seriously, and do so correctly, but some still insist on dumping litter and rubbish illegally,” said Susan Parsonage, the council’s chief executive. “Clearing this criminally fly-tipped waste from this difficult location is time consuming and creates unnecessary disruption on the road network.
“Household and businesses waste must only be given to a registered waste carrier and we’re implementing a range of measures to prevent and enforce against fly-tipping as we continue to tackle this blight on our borough.”
Council officers will be continuing to visit local businesses during the coming months. They are authorised to inspect a company’s waste contract and arrangements to ensure it has proper storage and sufficient space for the amount of waste it produces as well as the correct number of collections.
