Leeds residents call for fly-tipping crackdown on rural route

The road is regularly blocked by fly-tipped waste, residents say

Residents of a West Yorkshire street are calling for more action to be taken against fly tippers after three loads of rubbish were dumped in 10 days.

People living on Green Lane in Farnley, Leeds, say they are forced to remove the waste themselves as it blocks the road, stopping vehicles getting past.

Homeowners are calling on the local authority to install CCTV and lighting on the rural road.

Leeds City Council said it was "committed to tackling" fly tipping.

Paul Handley said waste was being dumped "on a regular basis".

"It's disgusting to think that people can't be bothered just to take it to the tip which is only a mile, two miles away," he said.

"They are happy to come here in the middle of the night, dump it and block a public road, people can't get out."

The latest waste included a car wheel, children's schoolbooks and plastic sheeting.

Mr Handley said locals wanted "to have preventative measures rather than us having to keep reporting it and the residents here having to physically clear it ourselves just to get to work in the morning".

Residents are calling for Leeds City Council to install measures such as CCTV and lighting

Another resident, Rachel Saville, said in one recent incident the dumped waste was "metres high" and completely blocked the road.

"It was literally like they had emptied a whole house clearance on the road," she said.

"We cannot get out to work every day, we can't get an emergency vehicle if we needed one and we can't get the binmen, our services that we pay for through our council tax.

"No one seems to help, no one seems to care."

Leeds City Council said it had introduced a number of measures to reduce fly tipping including removing charges for the collection of bulky items.

"The council has taken numerous steps to ensure that people committing environmental crimes in Leeds are brought to justice, including setting up a dedicated serious environmental crime team," a spokesperson said.

"After being made aware of the fly tip at Green Lane, the council's cleaner neighbourhoods team moved quickly to clean up the site and collect evidence to assist a potential investigation."