Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Unwanted nocturnal deliveries to our fields
Two shocking instances of industrial-scale fly-tipping in the South East have prompted Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger to tell Defra Secretary Steve Barclay that much more needs to be done to get on top of rural crime
DEAR Steve, It says a lot about the way we supposedly care for our countryside when someone can get away with dumping hundreds of tons of possibly toxic waste to wreck a cherished woodland.
Such an incident, as you may be aware, has been recorded twice in the South East in recent days and quite frankly it makes me utterly furious.
In this part of the world we are relatively fortunate – though I stress only relatively – in that we receive no more than our fair share of the million or so fly-tipping incidents reported every year.
They are still irritating enough but probably limited by the fact that many of our rural roads are still lightly trafficked and any unusual or suspicious vehicle movements are pretty soon noticed by someone.
All the same, far too many of our local farmers are still having to put up with unauthorised nocturnal deliveries to their fields and gateways of redundant freezers, timeexpired sofas and assorted builders’ waste.
I suppose in the South East with its far higher traffic levels, a few extra lorry movements are not going to arouse any suspicion. All the same I am puzzled as to how such huge tonnages of waste were dumped without someone sussing what was going on and running up a signal flag.
It all illustrates what you can get away with if you are brazen enough about it – rather like the chap in the white coat and peaked cap who for years ran the parking in front of the old Bristol Zoo. The zoo authorities assumed he was working for the council and the council assumed he was working for the zoo. He was doing neither: he was working for himself and making a decent living out of the ticket income. But seriously, not only do we have to get tough on miscreants who despoil the countryside, we have got to concentrate on catching them, which is why I commend the NFU for writing to the new intake of police and crime commissioners pleading for more attention and resources to be devoted to the rising problem of rural crime.
I still maintain that rural counties such as Somerset are reaping a bitter harvest from the decisions taken by
police forces to steadily de-staff the rural areas and concentrate resources in towns and cities.
It has certainly made the life of the fly-tipper a good deal easier. But now we must make it tougher. I applaud the fact that at least we have upped the penalties for those caught. But it doesn’t matter if you prescribe million-pound fines and ten-year jail terms if you can’t catch them in the first place.
The annual cost of rural crime is
now nudging £50 million, or nearly £1 million a week, which is a truly shocking figure. And it is my firm belief that only by treating the matter far more seriously, by devoting far more resources to it – and indeed by putting the public on high alert to report the least suspicious activity they encounter – are we going to be able to start to crank the figure downwards.