Culprits of enormous fly-tip should be jailed - MP

Diggers were brought in to help remove the illegally dumped waste

An MP has called for those behind a "genuinely staggering" mound of illegally dumped waste that blocked a road in his constituency to be jailed.

It comes as the council's investigation into the incident on Watery Lane in Lichfield has led officers to carry out searches at a number of waste sites - including some outside Staffordshire.

Lichfield MP Dave Robertson said nine households were trapped and 20 businesses were forced to shut as the enormous pile of rubbish cut off their only access.

It had caused a risk to life, he said, as emergency services would have been unable to reach them.

The other end is blocked while a new housing development is built - and the MP praised the developer for opening up a service route and for their assistance in the days since the dumping.

Mr Robertson says the incident caused a risk to life earlier this week

"This was not a few tyres out the back of a transit van," Mr Robertson said.

"This was an industrial scale, enormous fly-tip, which meant that the lane was completely unpassable from the north."

A waste management company brought in to tackle the issue said it was the largest clear-up it had ever had to deal with.

Raising the issue in Parliament, Mr Robertson said ministers were considering reforms to a scheme that registers businesses that buy, sell or transport waste.

Minister for nature Mary Creagh said: "The carrier, broker and dealers' regime is not fit for purpose.

"I've asked officials to look at what we can do to strengthen that to avoid the sort of casual criminality that we saw [in Lichfield]."

A spokesperson for Lichfield District Council said the investigation continued and they had obtained evidence from within the fly-tipped waste and nearby CCTV cameras.

"As a result of this our Environmental Health officers have been to a number of waste sites, some of which are outside Staffordshire," they said.