Checks in national park 'blighted' by fly-tipping

A series of stop-and-checks on vehicles in the New Forest will take place in the coming weeks

Stop-and-search operations are being carried out in a national park that has been "blighted" with fly-tipping.

Organisations working in the New Forest in Hampshire, are carrying out the checks during the autumn focusing on waste licences and basic road safety.

Hampshire Police, Forestry England, and New Forest District Council have joined forces to tackle the problems.

An event in Lyndhurst saw 88 vehicles stopped in three hours with tickets issued for several motoring offences.

PC Mark Roberts led the operation.

Officers were stationed on the High Street to direct cars or vans into a car park where inspections could be carried out.

"The New Forest is being blighted with fly-tipping at the moment so this is one method we're using to tackle that issue," he said.

Commoner Erica Dovey has seen her animals chewing on rubbish dumped in the national park

Forestry England ranger Erica Dovey is also a commoner in the forest and said the impact of fly-tipping on her own animals has been hard to witness.

"Cattle will chew on almost anything, you'll often see them with rubbish hanging out of their mouths and if that goes into their stomachs then ultimately it's death," she added.

Ms Dovey said before working alongside the police and Forestry England she didn't know about a carriers' licence - the licence for commercial vehicles to carry waste.

"I think more messaging around carriers' licensing would definitely help commoners, rangers and the New Forest."

Adam was stopped during his checks and had to inflate a low-pressure tyre before he was allowed to leave

Basic vehicle safety checks carried out on the day included inspections of tyre depth, working lights, indicators, and MOTs.

Chimney sweep Adam from Lymington received a £100 fine, three points on his licence and had to re-MOT his vehicle for having a low-pressure tyre.

He was one of the drivers asked to fix his vehicle in the car park before he could leave.

Despite the fine, he thought the checks were fair: "It's important, maybe not first thing on a Monday morning but you know it is important because I could have caused an accident."

No vehicle was seen to be carrying any illegal waste, although 13 tickets were issued to drivers and passengers for not wearing a seat belt, as well as four for using a mobile phone.

Other offences included driving without insurance, displaying an illegal number plate, and having an insecure load.

Three tickets were issued to people for driving without due care and attention.

One was rolling a cigarette, one was driving inappropriately in the car park and the other was going the wrong way up the High Street.

A council spokesperson said they were satisfied with the outcome of the day and that people were compliant.