Fly-tipping nuisance not fair on farmers

IMUST say it was a relief to be able to get around to see people without encountering snow, flood or roads blocked by trees torn down by gales – indeed by what I am seeing in some gardens it’s hard to believe that winter has actually arrived.

I am however bracing myself for an onslaught of complaints from the farming fraternity – whose efforts in supplying us all with Christmas comestibles rarely attract the appreciation they deserve – who, if things run true to form, will soon be gathering a harvest of fly-tipped rubbish.

For Christmas and New Year generally bring a surge of activity on the part of those who believe the countryside is one large rubbish tip.

Whether it’s excess bottles and cans or wrapping paper and packaging, for so many people there is no better place to dispose of it than in a farmer’s gateway or simply by the side of the road. Not that the dumping is restricted to small items.

Old sofas are quite prevalent at this time of the year thanks mainly, I believe, to the intensive television advertising campaigns that run in November offering families the chance to acquire sofas the size of small cars with no deposit, nothing to pay for five years and just order now to be guaranteed delivery by Christmas.

What Christmas has to do with home furnishing I have never been able to understand. What’s the spur, what’s the necessity? Uncle Ted can just as easily fall asleep from a surfeit of turkey and pudding on an old sofa as a new one. He is unlikely to take umbrage at the fact that he hasn’t been provided with a shiny new faux leather number in crimson rexine upon which to sprawl in somnolent repose until such time as someone digs him in the ribs and tells him the Queen’s on, is he?

But the arrival of new sofas generally signals the fact that the old ones have to be got rid of. And guess where many end up?

I’d like to think those who despoil the countryside with rubbish at this time of the year and indeed all others would all be brought to book – and I would make special mention of the miscreant who deposited what appeared to be a month’s worth of domestic rubbish by the side of the road in one of the more picturesque corners of the Quantock Hills last week.

Sadly, although the law provides remedies for such offences they are hardly draconian enough to act as a real deterrent (and I suppose if they were ordered to do their community work wearing a gilet jaune bearing the legend ‘Fly-tipper’ on the back that would be an infringement of their ‘uman rights). More to the point, local authorities are now so stretched in terms of manpower that carrying out the necessary investigations in an effort to track offenders simply isn’t an option.

In other words as long as those dumping the waste do it unseen and take care to ensure that it contains nothing – such as a letter or an address label – that might incriminate them they are generally going to get away with it, and know this to be the case.

But we absolutely have to stop the burden of clearance and disposal falling on landowners and farmers. They are not responsible for creating the nuisance and it is manifestly unfair that they should be effectively punished for someone else’s misdeeds.

Expect to hear more from me on this in due course. Meanwhile, Happy New Year!

A surge of activity from those who

believe the countryside is a large

rubbish tip