Some effort made to clear up mess
Efforts have begun to clear up some of the wind-blown rubbish littering the Mount Alexander area dump site at Camaghael, community councillors heard this week.
After concerns about continued fly-tipping at the illegal tip site were aired yet again in a recent issue of the Lochaber Times, including a pledge by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to investigate any further complaints, Kilmallie Community Council’s meeting this week heard things had started to improve.
Community council secretary Russell Leaper told Monday night’s online meeting: ‘Thanks to the Lochaber Times’ article after our discussion last time, one of the operators down there has done a lot of work in the last week clearing up.
‘They’ve had a skip and done lot of cleaning on their site. Although there is still quite a lot of littering on the other side of the fence where it is blowing around, it’s still really good to have seen a response to the article in the paper.
‘A few people suggested they might be willing to help clear up on the side with the path down to the river. Maybe if we contacted SEPA they would talk to some of operators and tell them there will be a community effort to clean up the area in the hope they respect that and keep things clear at their end so litter doesn’t blow back onto the path.
‘It is certainly something we should look into more.
‘We can contact SEPA and say it’s pleasing to see steps being taken, but we’d like them to help encourage the operators to keep it that way and possibly have a group of volunteers to clean up the area outside the current yards. Hopefully that would keep it tidy.’
The community council agreed to contact Highland Council in the first instance to see what help might be available in terms of bags, gloves and skips. Caol and Mallaig ward councillor Denis Rixson said local authority facilities manager Ian Cameron was the person to contact. ‘In the past, he’s always been pleased to provide bags and gloves but it would be sensible to speak with him first so that once the litter is collected it can be uplifted reasonably soon afterwards.’
Councillor Leaper suggested the first task might be to contact SEPA and say there might be a viable community effort to clear up litter but this could only be initiated if SEPA could have some positive discussions with commercial operators in the area. ‘We’d need some positive discussions to take place with them so they will make an effort to stop things blowing back and ending up as it was before and then follow up with Ian Cameron.
‘I think you would definitely need a skip, possibly multiple skips, because there really is quite a lot to clear up.’