We've been caught fly-tipping. Now what?

[NameChangeSake797]

The council field behind our house hasn't been farmed for at least seven years as it's got planning permission for houses. Houses aren't due to be built for a couple of years at least (it's all been very underhanded and our small village will double in size).

Anyho, we've been doing a fair amount of gardening recently with us trying to make our garden more child friendly. We've been putting grass cuttings/general garden waste just over our boundary into the field. We've also had a couple of trees cut down/brambles cleared and we decided to 'distribute' the brambles/branches over the field to stop the brambles growing back (there's already loads of brambles growing in the overgrown field) and for the branches not to stop us from being able to access the field (quite often walk the dogs out that way etc).

We know it's technically classed as fly-tipping, we've never littered in our whole lives and generally believe us to be law abiding citizens. We thought of it being bit of a victimless crime as by the time houses come to be built it will just be compost. It's also snowballed into a false sense of security from throwing over the grass clippings for the last couple of years to dragging out a dead bush.

However one neighbour decided to film/photograph us distributing the garden waste across the field. We can only presume this is because she's going to report us to the council for fly tipping.

Can we just bring all the garden waste back into our garden therefore there's no actual 'evidence' or call the council/speak to the neighbour to apologise profusely? This happened at the weekend and we're actually scared shitless of what's going to happen. Neither of us have ever dealt with the police and the possibility of getting a criminal record/going to court/large fine is causing us sleepless nights.

Do you think she was filming you because she thinks you might also be responsible for the BBQ, garden furniture and fridge?

I’m amazed that so many people think this is ok. Take your garden rubbish to the tip or pay for the garden bin that the council provide, like other people do. Entitled, lazy behaviour. Imagine if everyone just tipped their garden waste over the boundary fence.

The sense entitlement in some people is just baffling. Of course its fly tipping, you are discarding your property on someone else’s without their permission.

we’re farmers and we have so many problems with a couple of houses chucking their crap over the fences into our crops/livestock. One day I will just see red, shovel it all up into the load all bucket and deposit it back the other side of the fence, where it belongs. We really are a nation of arseholes sometimes, no respect for anyone else’s stuff.

I suspect if you are living in my area you would be prosecuted. Fly tipping is a huge problem here (rural but only a few miles out of town, so a prime area for this activity), but it can be very hard to find the culprits. On the rare occasion the council have been able to find the person tipping (or, more likely, the person who owned the waste and paid the tipper), they do seem to really go for it for use as a deterrent for others as well as trying to prove to residents they are being proactive. The few times a year they get a 'win', they post it all over local social media pages with names and the amount fined. It's often a couple of £k, which is a drop in the ocean but I guess will also go some way to clearing one or two of the other fly tips. Often when you click the accompanying link for full details, it is only the householder who has been caught and usually their mistake was ignorance of the law/their responsibilities. It doesn't come across as very lenient.
Whilst what you've done isn't on the same level as dumping a full truckload of branches in the middle of the road or sofas over farmer's gates, it is an easy 'win' for the council if your neighbour has managed to get clear footage that identifies you. I would remove what you can now and hope the footage doesn't clearly show your face.

If you think fly tipping your garden waste is acceptable and these are your arguments maybe you shouldn’t be working for the council. I wonder what they would think knowing a member of their staff who knows the issue with fly tipping is online defending their own fly tipping activities as not an issue and telling another poster who challenge them on their behaviour to ‘fuck off’

Also do not let someone who turns up and offers to remove it on the cheap. It will end up dumped on playing fields. Get a licensed person to remove it

We really are a nation of arseholes sometimes, no respect for anyone else’s stuff.

^ Thai is the crux of it really. Imagine if everyone behaved that way though. Thankfully some of us on this thread would not be so socially irresponsible.

Why would the local councillor even know you had been fly tipping? Thats dealt with by civil staff, it's not like councillors get a list. How odd.

It sounds most likely if you did get any action it would be a fixed penalty notice following an investigation. Tidying it up now won't change that I am afraid.

Don’t want to ‘trash their car’ according to an earlier post.
If only a company invented something like a boot liner for this very purpose, they’d make a fortune!

So they take root in the field instead and spread towards gardens in years to come?

Take your garden waste to the tip like everyone else does, then you don't have to worry about being "done" for flytipping.

Someone should invent sturdy reusable big bags with handles on that people can fill with garden waste.

Oh hang on, they did.

⬆This. Flytipping even "just" grass clippings is adding a lot more dead vegetation than would otherwise be there. It encourages rats and woodlice and fungi.

🙄🙄🙄

It's also snowballed into a false sense of security from throwing over the grass clippings for the last couple of years to dragging out a dead bush.

you've been doing it for years!

There's almost a footpath (it's not official just a few of us walk out that way)

So you trespass as well as fly tip?

how can we tell what's our recently dumped bramble verses one that's been growing for years?

Well, one will be rooted in and the other won't. Hardly difficult!

I'm tempted to go speak to her but DP thinks this will give her hard evidence that it's us - right now she/the council can't be 100% it's from our garden.

She already has hard evidence of you dumping your shit over the back.

Tbh even if they did fine you, how much would it be?
Is por worth the effort to collect it all up, get a skip etc? Most of it will rot anyway over time.

Well, the maximum fine is £50,000. Of course it's unlikely to be that though!

Fingers crossed it’s a hefty one

I love that in these situations the person reporting is always a 'busy-body', because you have been caught doing something you know you shouldn't have done. I hope she reports you and I hope you get fined, if you live in my area you definitely would be.

To be fair to the neighbour, she might not have any intention of reporting you for fly tipping green waste. At the point she started recording she might not have known what was being tipped and might have reported you accordingly if it was an old sofa etc.

Our house backs onto green space. We have never dumped green waste there but other houses certainly have and there are piles of it., much of it around for years. Got a knock a few months back from council enforcement team asking if we had recently pruned the bushes along our back fence. I said we hadn't and although our gardener could have they were responsible for taking away green waste after they come so I would check but didn't think it was them. He left a card.

I checked with our gardeners and turned out it was them - they had run out of space in their van and had neatly piled a really small amount (maybe a couple of green bins max) on top of existing piles of green waste, maybe 7, 8 times as large, with the intention of taking it a fortnight later on their next visit. Two days after the council turned up they had been to remove it. Still not ok but ultimately no real harm. Council insisted on the details of our gardeners and issued a FPN I believe.

So there definitely are councils that will take action - it felt unnecessary in many ways as it was cleared within about 48hrs and the council had done nothing about the large existing piles. Plus we are in no doubt that it was our neighbour who complained and if they'd just mentioned it we would have sorted it. But ultimately the council had the right to take action and some do.

One council offers a £100 reward for reporting offenders and the fines are in excess of £400.