Farmer whose land is one of Britain’s worst fly-tipping spots reveals he’s spent £4,000 clearing up waste including caravans, piles of broken furniture and bags of cannabis dumped in the last year
- Will Oliver, 34, says his farm in Coalville, Leicestershire is plagued with rubbish
- He says it has worsened since Covid, with trash now dumped in broad daylight
A farmer is calling for harsher fly-tipping penalties with his land now plagued with piles of rubbish on a daily basis.
Broken furniture, toilets and even six abandoned caravans are just a few of the items among the waste scooped up from Will Oliver’s farm last month.
The 34-year-old farmer of Leicestershire, believes fly-tipping has only gotten worse since Covid and has cost the farm around £4,000 to clean up in the last year.
He said: ‘It used to happen in the middle of the night, but now people do it in broad daylight.
‘They are willing to jump over gates and cut padlocks so there is no stopping them.’
Will Oliver, 34, says his farm in Coalville, Leicestershire is plagued with rubbish on a daily basis
Furniture and toilets are just a few of the items scooped up from the farm last month
The farmer believes cleaning up rubbish has cost the farm around £4,000 in the last year
Government figures show there were 1.09 million fly-tipping incidents in 2021 to 2022 compared with 980,000 between 2019 and 2020.
In 2020 there were 1.14 million incidents recorded, but this figure was skewed by the impact of the Covid pandemic and lockdowns.
Fly-tipping at Swepstone Fields Farm in Coalville initially happened just a couple of times a month but has since become a daily occurrence.
Will and his wife Polly, 31, run the farm together and have been given no option but to juggle the rubbish clearance with looking after livestock and other tasks.
Will continued: ‘Fly-tipping has happened on the farm for at least the last five years and has got worse since Covid.
‘We get all kinds of waste dumped on our land from builder’s waste, bags of cannabis plants from cannabis farms and domestic rubbish.
‘In the last few weeks we have had six caravans dumped in our fields and they are usually filled with rubbish or old tyres.’
The father-of-one claimed that it costs £1,000 to remove a caravan from his land using a waste collection website, but if he carries it away himself it can cost between £300 and £500.
Six abandoned caravans have been among the trash found at Swepstone Fields Farm
Will said: ‘If there are lots of piles of it on our land one day, people assume it is acceptable and then dump their stuff’
FLY-TIPPING FINES
Will is now demanding that fly-tipping offenders are handed £50,000 fines.
Currently, people in North West Leicestershire Council can be issued an immediate fixed penalty of £150 for littering.
But if convicted in court, litterers could face a fine of up to £2,500.
He added: ‘It’s not a council issue as it is on our private land and if I was to move the fly-tipping to the side of the road, I would in a sense be fly-tipping myself.
‘We can’t claim this back on the insurance and it is effecting our business.’
Will is now a farming ambassador for Clean Up Britain and is demanding that fly-tipping offenders are handed £50,000 fines.
He continued: ‘There is no pattern to the fly-tipping but if there are lots of piles of it on our land one day, people assume it is acceptable and then dump their stuff.
‘If people were fined for the fly-tipping and their crimes were published in the press, it might deter people from doing it.
‘But this is not happening enough so people don’t think they will be caught and are not scare to dump their rubbish on other people’s land.
‘People think a £50,000 fine is too much but we would easily spend this in a ten-year period removing the rubbish from our site.
‘It’s not just us that are suffering, neighbouring farms are having the same issues too.’
‘People have become careless now and just think dropping rubbish and fly-tipping is normal and this needs to stop.
‘We need the fines to be taken seriously for the fly-tipping to stop.’
The father-of-one is now demanding that fly-tipping offenders are handed £50,000 fines
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