The friends who fought back against fly-tippers

Joy Leach, Mukhtar Rehman and Jannat Bibi are among the volunteers who turned a grot spot into a community hotspot

A ginnel once littered with dirty needles and discarded fridges has been transformed by a band of volunteers.

Neighbours from the Manningham area of Bradford have spent five years turning the fly-tipping hotspot into a space the whole community can enjoy.

One of the group, Mukhtar Rehman, said it was now a "beautiful scene".

Their work comes as figures show there were more than 40,000 fly-tipping incidents recorded across West Yorkshire in 2022/23.

Mr Rehman, 37, grew up next to the alleyway at the back of Park View Road and said he had seen burning cars as well as rubbish dumped hundreds of times over the years.

He said as a youngster he would go to bed and within 30 minutes would hear people driving in to discard items such as fridges and mattresses.

Mr Rehman said: "As a child, looking out the window, seeing the burning cars, seeing the rubbish, I was like, is this where I live?"

He said a turning point came when, a few years ago, he found himself picking up used syringes.

The passageway used to be a magnet for fly-tipping

This was when he realised the situation was not just anti-social behaviour but "something else which is potentially dangerous".

Mr Rehman joined together with other volunteers to form the Lister Community Action Group.

They arranged for the ginnel to be gated off, cleaned up the space and added planters, bunting and other decorative features.

The new-look space has now been used to host neighbourhood parties.

The action group has transformed the space

Mr Rehman said: "From a fly tipping hotspot, this has become a hub for the local community where we come together, we have tea parties here, we come and chat, we come and enjoy the plants."

Fellow action group member Joy Leach said she used to avoid walking along the route.

She said: "There's still a right of way for people to walk up and down, but it's a pleasant route now."

Ms Leach said they had been growing climbers, herbs and even beans along the ginnel.

She said: "We had wonderful beans growing up the wall, a bit like Jack and the Beanstalk.

"I didn't realise quite how tall they were going to be."

She said one member of the group turned the beans into soup for everyone to enjoy.

Figures from Defra show there were more than 40,000 fly-tipping incidents recorded across West Yorkshire in 2022/23 with more than 15,000 of these in Bradford alone.

The county-wide number of incidents was a 3% fall from the previous year but was still treble the number recorded a decade before.

Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail].