Council workers taking on fly-tippers in Birmingham

Local Democracy Reporter Carl Jackson went along to see the action first hand.

As the crushed remains of a van which had been used for fly-tipping were dropped unceremoniously to the floor, the message from the city council to perpetrators became very clear: “If you dump rubbish illegally we will take action.”

I was at well-known Birmingham scrapyard Taroni’s for a very visual demonstration of the lengths the authority will go to deter criminals and keep the city tidy.

But this was only one element of the council’s Love Your Street Day held in Saltley yesterday, which was as much about preventing fly-tipping in the first place than taking action afterwards.

In the morning around 30 workers from the council gathered on Washwood Heath Road.

They had been pulled from a number of departments such as street scene, environmental health, Trading Standards as well as contractors such as highways maintenance firm Amey and litter enforcers Kingdom.

The aim was to tackle a number of issues on Alum Rock Road around the corner, but already there was an obvious problem.

There, sitting a few yards from a bus stop lay a huge mound of rubbish.

Upon closer inspection the heap was plagued with flies and wasps which scattered everywhere when the black bags were disturbed.

Passers-by couldn’t help but to cover their noses due to the stench while traders complained that the rubbish had been dumped from businesses on Alum Rock Road.

Before long a council bin wagon arrived and two workers preceded to reduce the rubbish mountain to a molehill within minutes.

But that was far from problem solved according to Louise Bessant, who coordinated the clean-up day for the council.

She said: “If we just pick that up it would be there again tomorrow. But if we pick it up and get somebody to engage with the businesses it might not be.

“Today is an opportunity for all sorts of services to come together to fix inherent problems such as fly-tipping.

“We want to clear it up but also change some historic patterns of behaviour.

“The whole idea of today is to educate, engage with residents and businesses and maybe possibly enforce.”

The large gathering of people wearing high-visibility jackets certainly caught the attention of many shoppers and traders.

Samina Rashid of Ruby Hair and Beauty said: “It’s not the council’s fault. People don’t care to be honest, they don’t take responsibility for their own rubbish.”

The congregation eventually moved up Alum Rock Road and broke out into smaller groups targeting different issues.

Officers from Amey removed fly-posted signs from railings whilst also talking to traders about their shop displays encroaching too far out from their shop front.

Duty of care officers were on the scene to ensure businesses had the appropriate commercial waste removal arrangements in place. Out of five compliance checks one outlet remains under investigation.

There were also officers on the street to address parking offences, particularly those not observing the timed restrictions for leaving cars on either side of the road. A total of 25 tickets were issued.

Representatives from Veolia set up a stand to speak to residents and traders about recycling.

It was not long before attention was drawn to another huge pile of rubbish, this time spilling out of a trade waste bin on the side street Reginald Road.

The initial attempt by binmen to tackle the excess mess only caused more commotion when a bag burst open with lumps of fast-food waste dropping on to the road and requiring a shovel to scrape up.

In total more than 2.5 tonnes of rubbish and litter were removed on the day, while CCTV was recovered to further investigate incidents of fly-tipping.

Councillor John O’Shea, street scene and parks boss, said: “The aim is to try and leave the street cleaner and tidier than when we got here and we want to respond to the problems that residents have told us about; litter, illegal fly-tipping, fly-posting, tackling obstructive parking, obstruction on the footpath, a whole range of things and we’ve got all of the different departments here today to deal with it.

“We have our job to do in terms of keeping the streets clean and tidy and we need to do that job better than we are doing.

“We are doing better than at the start of the year and it will carry on improving.

“But residents and traders also have a job to do.

“If you live in Birmingham, as I do, we have to look after our city and love our streets.

“That means we don’t put fly-tipping out there, we don’t litter, we don’t park our cars badly, that makes a difference.

“More importantly, the council will listen to you and we will take action.

“That is what this is about, people told us what’s been happening on Alum Rock Road and here we are doing something about it.”

Cynics may argue that just one day of action will not change anything.

However the council was quick to point to the turnaround at Soho Road which was awarded a Silver Gilt Britain in Bloom award in 2018, two years on from a Love Your Street Day taking place on the route.

Finally, it was the short diversion to Taroni’s scrapyard where two seized vehicles lay in wait to be turned into crumpled metal.

One was a Ford Transit boxed van which had been used to fly-tip rubbish in Washwood Heath while its driver had operated as an unlicensed scrap dealer.

The other, a Foden skip lorry, had more notably been used by Sean Martin, of Wednesbury, who was found guilty of dumping 11 tonnes of waste at a Handsworth property branded a ‘tip house’. He was jailed for five months earlier this year.

Both vehicles were in turn hoisted into the air by a green crane and dumped into a nearby bailer.

It took a matter of minutes for the machine to mangle them into unrecognisable piles of metal.