Louts turned street into Britain’s ‘worst’ fly-tipping hotspot

Residents living in Britain’s ‘worst’ fly-tipping hotspot say rubbish-dumping ‘morons’ are turning their neighbourhood into a ‘slum’.

Fly-tippers are making homeowners’ lives ‘unbearable’ as they transform Willenhall, West Midlands, into a ‘makeshift tip’ of dumped sofas, washing machines and even an old caravan.

Jamie Tombs, 49, lives on a housing estate in the area and said the mountains of discarded rubbish lining the streets was ‘getting beyond a joke’.

‘It’s the worst fly-tipping spot in the borough and I imagine there’s not really anything like it elsewhere in the UK this bad,’ he said.

‘Morons are just constantly adding to it but they get away with it so of course they carry on. It feels sometimes like there’s fly-tipped rubbish on every corner.’

He claimed local council workers but ‘sometimes’ collect the rubbish but nothing has been done ‘for long periods’ – despite an outcry from locals.  

And it is not only household waste being dumped on the rat-infested streets.

Mr Tombs continued: ‘It’s one thing to dump a mattress but there have been caravans and car parts there too – it’s like living in a slum.’

In the worst-affected areas of Springvale Street and Ann Street, smashed cars, skips and shipping containers filled with waste have all been dumped.

And the brazen fly-tippers return almost daily to add to the rubbish according to residents.

One said it was ‘shocking’ but ‘part of life these days’.

The resident, who works near Springvale Street, said fly-tippers think ‘it’s easier to dump stuff’ and there were sometimes lorries in the area tipping rubbish on to the street.

Another resident who works nearby said the dumping had recently become worse, with ‘a group of women’ living in one dumped caravan, which was on the street ‘for a couple of months’.

The women were later ‘moved on’ according to the resident.

Despite CCTV, they said fly-tippers cover their registration plates to remain undetected.

‘I’m assuming it’s going to be local people doing this, it has to be. How else would they know about it?’ they added.

Simran Cheema, a Labour member who represents the area on the Tory-run Walsall Council, said she has been raising the issue since October.

‘In the meantime, there’s just further dumping there every single day,’ she said.

Cllr Cheema blamed ‘tat-men’ who she said ‘go around collecting people’s rubbish from house clearances’ and use the streets ‘as a dumping ground’.

She added: ‘When there’s fly-tipping on private land, the council would rightly point out to landlords and push them to get it cleared as soon as possible.

‘But now, when a lot of it is on council-owned land, the public highway, it just seems like they’re really slow. That’s my biggest frustration.’

In July Walsall Council approved £4.7million to increase fly-tipping enforcement efforts and opened a £32million ‘super-tip’ in Aldridge this month.

Mike Bird, leader of the council, said he would ‘put the force back into enforcement’ and promised fly-tippers would face the full force of the law.

But Cllr Cheema said the words were ‘meaningless’ and the council should ‘do what they promised’.

She added the hotspot areas needed to be tackled urgently and it was ‘appalling’ that streets had been allowed to reach this condition.

A Walsall Council spokesperson said it was ‘aware of longstanding issues in this area’ and were considering plans to ‘secure the site’ before clearance to make sure the issue was tackled ‘long-term’.