Duo fined Fly-tipping pair dumped rubbish on country roads

Two dodgy rubbish collectors will have to fork out more than £3,600 after being caught fly-tipping on country roads.

The pair, from Maidstone and Sheerness, had taken payment to collect and dispose of household waste – but instead dumped it in Aylesford, Snodland and Trottiscliffe.

Richard Mayhew, of Harp Farm Road, Boxley, and Elliott Ashley of Jefferson Road, Sheerness, appeared before Sevenoaks Magistrates charged with dumping rubbish and other offences breaching the Environmental Protection Act.

The court heard how Mayhew, 35, owns Rusty’s Scrap Metal Collection and Waste Removal.

On March 30 last year he dumped rubbish on Old Chatham Road, Aylesford including a mattress, bed base, wooden joists, pictures and black sacks he had been paid to collect from a house in Wateringbury earlier that month.

Council officers investigated and discovered that neither Mayhew or Rusty’s were listed as registered waste carriers.

However, Mayhew is registered as a scrap dealer with the borough council.

He denied the offences but was found guilty and fined £420. In addition, he will have to pay £650 legal costs, £183 clear-up costs and a victim surcharge of £42.

Ashley, 38, admitted fly-tipping household waste including children’s toys, a trampoline, fencing and decorating items in Wrotham Water Road, Trottiscliffe on April 26 last year and dumping more waste he had been paid to collect two days later in Brook Lane, Snodland.

He was fined £600 for each offence and ordered to pay £700 legal costs, £308 clear-up/com- pensation costs and a victim surcharge of £120.

Robert Styles, Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council’s director of street scene, leisure and technical services, said: “Fly-tipping is a crime – it is anti-social, unsightly and hazardous and will not be tolerated.

“In Tonbridge and Malling, the estimated cost of clearing up flytipping for 2015-2016 was £31,860 – money that would have been much better spent on services for our residents.”

“Fly-tipping blights communities and amounts to environmental vandalism, which is why we will continue to do all we possibly can to ensure that those who deface our environment in this way are brought to justice.”