Heroic villagers have been praised after they caught two fly-tippers dumping rubbish on a country lane red-handed before using their cars to trap the culprits in until the police arrived to arrest them.
The men, who arrived in white vans in broad daylight, had started throwing black bin bags and pipes onto the road in the Packington Estate near Meriden, Warwickshire, when furious passers-by spotted them.
While the culprits were hoping to go unnoticed they could not escape after angry locals formed a blockade around their vehicles, preventing them from fleeing the scene.
The quick-thinking residents then called Warwickshire Police who turned up within minutes to arrest the men for what they said was ‘some of the worst fly-tipping [the force] had seen in a long time.’
The blockade comes 12 years after residents in the same village tried to stop an illegal traveller site forming by camping on the road for more than 600 days.
Police at the scene of the fly-tipping. Thanks to the heroic actions of the villagers, Warwickshire Police were able to arrest the men in what they call ‘some of the worst fly-tipping we had seen in a long time’
The men’s two white vans being prevented from leaving
Two men dumped their rubbish, which included piles of black bin bags and pipes among other things, on a country lane on the Packington Estate near Meriden
The local police force confirmed on Facebook that it had been called out to a report of two vans fly tipping.
Officers said they had been called out after ‘local residents and workers on the estate had blocked the offenders in’.
The cops detained the two men who were then instructed to reload their two vans with all the rubbish they had dumped on the road.
‘We supervised them cleaning up their mess and enjoyed a great cup of tea and slice of home made cake courtesy of the farmer’s wife,’ the force said. ‘No cake and tea for these two offenders.’
The two men were detained and ordered to reload their back up with rubbish, with the vans then being seized under the Environmental Act.
A police spokesperson said: ‘Cleaning up the results of fly-tipping is the responsibility of the local council and members of the public who discover incidents of fly-tipping should report it to them directly.
‘Officers from the Warwickshire Rural Crime Team also attended the scene and have now taken on the investigation and prosecution case.’
Clarkson was pictured behind the wheel of a JCB as he cleared the mounds of rubbish from the site
Cotswolds locals said that fly-tipping is a ‘growing issue’ after Jeremy Clarkson was seen using a JCB digger to clear up rubbish from his farm, Diddly Squat
Fuming residents living in Chipping Norton said fly-tipping has got worse in recent weeks and months
The incident comes just days after Cotswolds locals blasted ‘disgusting’ fly-tipping after Jeremy Clarkson was seen using a JCB digger to clear up rubbish from his Diddly Squat farm.
Fuming residents living in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, said it had become a ‘growing issue’ in recent weeks and months, with the former Top Gear star also having to to get involved.
The TV star was pictured on Wednesday scooping up a large pile of waste while he spoke to locals and film crews looked on.
Among the litter dumped appears to be large sheets of a black tarpaulin-like material, tyres and bits of rubble.
His fellow villagers said waste is regularly dumped in the country road lay-bys with culprits taking advantage of the unlit rural roads where there are no CCTV cameras.
Some blamed it on the 2011 closure of the Dean Pit Recyling Centre, near Chadlington, while others said it was because a recycling centre in Chipping Norton had also shut down.
Britain’s worst fly-tipping hotspots ranked, according to new data from Defra
Rubbish piles in Hoad’s Wood, Kent, a beauty spot and Site of Special Scientific Interest
A huge heap of 200 tonnes of waste was found on a dirt track north of Congleton, Cheshire
The incident comes as England was exposed as a nation of fly-tippers with more than one million incidents of illegal waste dumping being recorded in 2023.
Despite the number of fly-tipping reports falling just one per cent from 1.09million in 2021/22 to 1.08million in 2022/23, the number of fines issued by local councils dropped by 19 per cent, from 91,000 to 73,000.
The figures revealed England’s fly-tipping hotspots, with Brent in north west London taking the top spot with 34,830 reports recorded.
The top 20 worst spots for the crime were all in the capital, with Camden, Westminster, Hackney and Lewisham all listed.
Councils issued 73,316 fixed penalty notices relating to fly tipping which equates to around seven per cent of all fly tippers. Of those fines issued, only 87 per cent were ever paid.
And it all comes at cost to the taxpayer. The national cost of clearing up fly tipping rubbish in 2023 was estimated to be a whopping £18.7million.
