A local council is seen spending £150,000 removing three football pitches worth of waste left by fly-tippers in a North London suburb, on tonight’s ITV documentary ‘Fly Tipping: Britain’s Lockdown Problem’.
This week the government told councils to prepare to reopen tips after seeing an increase in fly-tipping since the lockdown, a problem highlighted after an eco-conscious man created new app ‘ClearWaste’.
Despite the crisis, CEO and founder of ClearWaste Martin Montague, of Hampshire, remains determined to do all he can to prevent the illegal dumping of waste, after seeing the problem first hand when he moved to the countryside from London.
A local council is forced to spend £150,000 removing three football pitches worth of waste from a North London suburb, on tonight’s Fly Tipping: Britain’s Lockdown problem – Tonight on ITV, 7:30pm. Pictured, Mill Hill before it’s clean up
CEO and founder of ClearWaste Martin Montague (pictured) , of Hampshire,created a free phone app which allows anyone in the UK to take a picture of fly-tipped waste they find and send it to the correct authority
In a bid to tackle the problem, Martin created a free phone app which allows anyone in the UK to take a picture of fly-tipped waste they find and send it to the correct authority.
The app also allows users to report people they catch fly-tipping, and connects like-minded people who wish to volunteer their time and help clean up rubbish.
The app has captured shocking examples of fly tipping, including Mill Hill in North London, which Martin says was the worst area he has ever seen, and is under the responsibility of Barnet Council.
‘People in Mill Hill had been living in rat infested pile of filth that was the size of three football fields large for months’, says Martin, appearing on the show.
It has been described as one of the worst fly-tipping sites in the UK by the man who filmed it. Pictured, Mill Hill before it’s clean up
Huge piles of rubbish had been dumped by fly-tippers in Mill Hill, north London, near a residential area. Pictured, Mill Hill before it’s clean up
Last year, local resident Mark Warren,who had previously raised the issue of fly-tipping near the disused site of Pentavia Retail Park told the Mail Online: This is he dark and hidden side of our lovely Mill Hill.
‘This has been going on for quite some time. The situation is getting out of hand. It is sickening that people can treat an area like this. They have taken a beautiful area and turned into a dump.
‘It looks like tipper trucks must have been down here to throw away this much waste.’
However since then, footage captured by Martin and hundreds of reports on the app have resulted in the mess being cleaned up – at a cost of £150,000 to local authorities.
Martin hopes that his app can eventually help prosecute those who are caught fly-tipping, a crime which carries a maximum penalty of is £50,000 and/or a five-year prison sentence in the UK.
Elsewhere on the programme, an area in Newport, Wales that has been dubbed ‘the road to nowhere’ was visited.
Elsewhere on the programme, an area in Wales that has been dubbed ‘the road to nowhere’ was visited. Pictured, abandoned rubbish in Newport
The closed section of road was built as part of an industrial development but since being abandoned has become a popular spot for fly tipping.Pictured, abandoned rubbish in Newport
The closed section of road was built as part of an industrial development but since being abandoned has become a popular spot for fly tipping.
Community council chair Brian Miles says: ‘This is been going on for years, it’s a depressing sight, it really is.
‘When we first came down here you would bump into walkers, now you don’t see a soul down here. It needs to be addressed before this area is beyond rescuing’.
He adds: ‘Looking at the waste around you we think it’s quite organised because it ranges from demolition, to toys, to clothes.’
Brian has been lobbying authorities to clear it up, and says he has been without success and ‘no action at all’ has been taken, as apparently ‘the scale of the problem it is too big’.
‘We’ve asked them to start a clean up or put cameras in the area to catch the fly tippers, says Brian, ‘We’ve had nothing at all’.
The programme estimated that there are around 20-30 groups of organised criminals currently running flytipping scams in the UK.
Fly Tipping: Britain’s Lockdown problem – Tonight on ITV, 7:30pm