It’s nice to know that once in a while, we get a win against the fly tippers that blight our village lanes!
On 17th February this year, our champion litter picker, Brenda, on her daily clean up run, came across this scene on Scorcher Hills Lane at 10.45 am. There were over 20 black sacks of rubbish, a full size shop sign, along with hundreds of 14 inch pizza boxes and thousands of food boxes and leaflets advertising the shop’s wares, thrown across the road, all the way from the Burghwallis village sign to the woods near the A1. All these items came from a shop in Leeds and it looks like they had had a fire, as most of the rubbish had burnt edges.
After collecting some of the loose pieces of paper, Brenda returned home and reported it to DMBC at 10.52 am. Knowing there was a storm forecast for that same night, Brenda included in her report details of all the loose paper, and concerns of what might happen if the wind took hold of them. She also included a video and photos of the rubbish.
The evidence revealed it was the possibly the result of a clear-out of a bankrupt pizzeria in Leeds. Presumably the new owners wanted the contents of the shop removed and set off for Burghwallis and Norton, who incidentally received the other half of the rubbish. Apart form the shop sign, doh there were hundreds of polystyrene food containers.
DMBC reacted promptly, and came out the same day and removed half of the rubbish, and returned the following morning to remove the rest. a swift response so far.
On picking up more of the loose papers the next day(18th), Brenda was told by the DMBC operative that a similar pile had been dumped in Norton, all from the same shop.
DMBC then agreed to follow up the incident and to look at the possibility of prosecuting the offenders. All the rubbish had been removed by 11.00 on the 18th, so a big Thank You is due to all those involved in such a rapid clean up.
We have now been told that the shop was closed down some time ago and their license revoked.
That’s one miscreant off the scene.
Amazing what you can achieve with a bit of teamwork! And let’s hope the fly tipper tossers are successfully prosecuted with the max financial penalty and at least sentenced to 200 hours community service picking up litter.