Fly tipper prosecuted

A man has been ordered to pay £1,240 in fines and costs after admitting fly tipping waste in Besom Lane, Westerleigh.

The man from Staple Hill  appeared before North Avon Magistrates’ Court and was fined £400 with costs of £800 and a £40 victim surcharge.

The court heard that a Yate resident had been in contact with Burnell who agreed to remove some cardboard and packaging waste for the resident for £40. The waste was subsequently found dumped in a lay-by on Besom Lane. Burnell had claimed that he was driving along Besom Lane a few days after collecting the waste, when he saw some litter, including a mattress, dumped in a lay-by on the side of the road. He admitted dumping the Yate residents’ waste there as well.

If you have unwanted goods and household or garden waste, you are advised either to dispose of it at no cost via the council's Sort It centres or to give it to an Environment Agency registered waste carrier. Otherwise you could be held liable if waste is subsequently fly tipped. There are some simple steps you can take:

• Ask for a copy of the company’s waste carrier registration certificate and ask where the waste is being taken. Legitimate firms will be happy to provide this information.
• Please do not be tempted to use people offering cheap waste clearance on sites such as Facebook and Gumtree unless you have confirmed that they are registered with the Environment Agency. You can check by calling the Environment Agency on 08708 506506 or by checking the public register of waste carriers. 
• Ask for a registered trading address and contact telephone number for the trader and get a receipt.

If you see illegal fly tipping, please report it using this online form or by contacting the Street Care helpdesk on 01454 868000 or streetcare@southglos.gov.uk

Fly tipping law has teeth - successful prosecution

South Glos has had its first successful fly tipping prosecution of the year, when a man from Winterbourne pleaded guilty to fly tipping, not having a waste carriers licence, no waste transfer note and failing to supply information relating to the vehicle used in committing the offence.  He was fined £183 and ordered to pay £380 costs and a victim surcharge of £20.

The offence took place at  the former community composting site at Shire Way, Yate. Over a period of years the site has been subject to numerous criminal offences of fly tipping either by commercial landscapers dumping their commercial green waste or builders and paving firms fly tipping increasingly significant amounts of builder’s rubble and waste at the site.

 Because of the abuse of the site increasing amounts of preventative measures have been put in place including CCTV and signage making it absolutely clear that the site is only for garden waste and any other waste will be seen as fly tipping and a criminal offence. Despite this fly tipping of all types of waste has continued at the site. The site has now ceased to operate.

A flatbed lorry fully laden with earth, mud and hard-core enter the car park and drive straight to the composting area. It dumped the spoil and drove off immediately, but not before a witness had noted the lorry registration number.

The owner failed to appear in court for his first hearing so a warrant for his arrest was issued by the court. He was subsequently arrested at his home address by police and attended Northavon Magistrates court on 22nd January, where he pleaded guilty to all charges.

So the law has some teeth, but when you add it up the lorry owner may still have made a profit. Perhaps he will be deterred from doing it again.

Beech Hill Farm tipping approved

Planning permission has been granted to Churngold for importing clay, subsoil and topsoil on the site at Beech Hill Farm, Westerleigh Road (known locally as "the place that sells the fireworks")

However there are quite a few conditions. They have to complete tipping within two years from starting, and then plant the area within the following three months. Nothing except uncontaminated excavated natural materials can be deposited on the site.

Hours of work are limited to 08.00 - 18.00 hours, Monday to Friday and 08.00 - 13.00 hours on Saturdays. Wheel washing facilities and on site turning areas have to be provided, and heavy goods vehicles have to turn left into the site and turn left out of the site to reduce traffic problems.

Full details are on the South Glos website under Planning Reference PT11/0339/MW - click on the Documents tab and look for Decision Notice at the bottom.

Beech Hill Farm tipping application

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Beech Hill Farm - blue line shows tipping boundary, pointer shows access from Westerleigh Road

This is the property on the right as you go from the Shire Way mini-roundabout, under the bridge towards Westerleigh – the place where they periodically sell fireworks and the like. The land behind the buildings is just across the track from the Westerleigh Rd railway embankment, so the neighbours are Chedworth and Rodborough. Over the years there has been a history of failed planning applications and enforcement notices.

Many years ago the land was tipped, but according to the planning application paperwork it is too contaminated for grazing – some of the tipped material was waste sand from a foundry. Most of the original tipping was domestic waste. Test pits have confirmed this, finding amongst other things a Wellington boot and a dead cat. Apparently the clay capping on the landfill has failed.

It is proposed to cover the site to a depth of 2 metres - 1 metre of clay, 0.75 metres of subsoil and 0.25 metres of topsoil. This would mean importing 54,000 cubic metres of material – some 6350 lorry loads over 2 years, roughly similar to the railway embankment works, but spread over a longer period. This would be an average of 11.3 lorries per working day (based on 3 axle trucks holding 8.5 cubic metres each – if 4 axle trucks are used there would be fewer journeys)

There would be temporary roadways and wheel cleaning to minimise mud, and a mechanical road sweeper on Westerleigh Rd when necessary.

Proposed working hours are 0800-1800 Monday to Friday, and 0800-1300 or 1600 (the paperwork is inconsistent) on Saturdays. This road is of course very busy in both rush hours.

They have shown turning dimensions for trucks going both ways, so presumably some traffic could go through the estate. Trucks would go round a loop within the site so they should not need to reverse onto the main road. Restoration would include appropriate hedge planting and drainage.

Westerleigh Parish Council has objected due to its “dangerous highway location” and noted that there has been a history of not complying with conditions of a planning appeal. Yate Town Council has objected that it would be detrimental to nearby residents’ enjoyment of natural amenity, and that there would be an unacceptable increase of traffic at peak times. A local resident has objected on the grounds of noise, traffic, vibration and dust.

South Glos Technical Support (Street Care) has expressed concerns about potential flooding, unless an Environment Agency report is received to the contrary. They also point out that there are major sewers and drains across the southern part of the site – two Wessex Water surface water sewers, a Wessex Water foul sewer and the Network Rail land drain, all of which would need to be protected.

The land drain is the one that drains the embankment and carries the water from the Shire Way club tipping site, where it is suspected that tipping crushed a drain, causing the flooding at Besom Lane.

Dodington Parish Council will be discussing the application at its meeting on 5 September, and then the application will go to South Glos Council for decision. All the paperwork is available from the file on South Glos's website, but be warned, there's a lot of it.

Out and about

Last Wednesday evening a group of Dodington Parish Councillors took our summer minibus ride round the parish to make sure that we all know what we're talking about (well, hopefully)

We hired the minibus from Yate, Sodbury and District Community Transport - a group that the Parish Council has supported for many years. (Many thanks for an excellent trip!)

These are some of the sites we looked at, together with a brief update on several of the "hot potato" issues:

• Sea Stores - The government has put it up for sale, and is awaiting bids. When someone buys it we expect to see a planning application for housing, plus a little community land.
• Kelston Close Playing Fields - Should we upgrade the changing rooms, maybe get rid of the garage and put in some better storage?
• Westerleigh Road railway embankment - No, Network Rail haven't gone away and forgotten it. We're hoping to have another meeting with them soon about planting - watch this space.
• Beech Hill Farm (just in Westerleigh Parish Council's territory) - A proposed tipping site just the other side of the railway from the Westerleigh Rd embankment, Rodborough and Chedworth. More details to follow here shortly.
• Wapley allotments - They were looking very well-kept as usual - well done!
• Wapley picnic site - We get complaints from next door from time to time, when people camp out overnight, which they're not supposed to, and light fires other than on the barbecue. We have talked to the police about the incidents of rowdy behaviour.
• Wapley burial ground, next to St Peter's Church - the Parish Council runs the burial ground and the churchyard.

Then we toured some more of the South Ward, which stretches right out to the motorway. We glimpsed some deer in the twilight up near Dodington Ash. Finally we stopped for refreshment at the Codrington Arms. We can recommend the Codrington Codger, brewed just down the road at Cotswold Spring Brewery (no, neither of them sponsor this blog!)

Are there things in the Birds or in the area between Shire Way and Rodford Way that we should have looked at? Or do you have comments about some of the issues above? Please let us know through the feedback form - click here and fill out the form in the right hand column.