Householders in a conservation area have been left facing a bill to clean up a 30ft pile of rubbish dumped by fly-tippers.
Residents in Branksome Park in Poole, Dorset, say the offenders must have used at least two vans to carry the huge load of roof insulation, which was dumped overnight on Tuesday.
The waste pile stretches for 30ft and is 5ft high in places, and residents say because the secluded road is private it is likely they will have to pay to get rid of it.
Dionne Bell, 55, said: “As we are a private road we have to pay to have the road cleaned. We don’t have any streetlights, and we do actually have to pay for the road to be laid as well, which we’ve accepted.
“But we also all pay council tax and quite considerable amounts of it. The council washes their hands of it and leaves it for us to deal with.”
Another resident, who did not want to be named, said: “It’s quite an easy thing to do because this area is not overlooked. There are flats opposite but there are lot of trees in the way.
“They must have had two vans to get the stuff in properly.
“A lot of people say it is the council’s fault for charging to dump industrial waste at the tip but the fault is on the people who do it. It’s very thoughtless.”
John Challinor, a local councillor, said: “It is outrageous. It’s not just that it’s in a conservation area. Fly-tipping is disgusting anywhere and is often done by people who have been paid to remove it and then just dump it.
“It becomes more upsetting for people in conservation areas because you look at the ecology and environment it is in. It would be great if there were better ways of tracking the culprit.
“We seem to have spates of it, somebody thinks they can get away with it and then someone else sees it and thinks, ‘Oh, I’ll do that too.’”
On private property, owners must pay
The matter has been reported to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) council and the Environment Agency.
According to the Keep Britain Tidy website, if an act of fly-tipping happens on private property it is the responsibility of the landowner to safely dispose of the waste and pay any costs.
A spokesman for BCP council said it was looking into the matter to see what assistance it could provide.
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