This is a story about fly-tipping in the London borough of Newham and in this article you'll find the following:
- Newham - a fly-tipper's paradise
- Catching a fly-tipper in action
- Contacting Newham council about the fly-tipper
- Let's see if the Police can do anything
- Photos of the fly-tipper
Newham - a fly-tipper's paradise
It was on the 2nd February 2017 that I was cleaning the windows on my taxi in Beckton when I spotted this guy launching stuff into the bushes at the Newham Bridge Eastern Gateway Grade Separation slip road with Woolwich Manor Way. Anyone who knows the area will recognise it straight away as the slip road from Royal Docks road to Woolwich Manor Way.
It just happens to be an area which is prone to fly-tipping and unscrupulous people are always throwing out their unwanted toot here. Newham in particular is one of London's boroughs where a lot of fly-tipping goes on. I don't know the reasons but a lot of has to do with the type of people who live there. It's full of Eastern Europeans and Africans who either cannot read or who have come from some hell hole where throwing out household junk is the norm.
Where I live in Beckton, just down the road from where this particular incident happened, we have similar problems with the neighbours who are of African or Eastern European descent and I regularly have to tell them to call the council and pay a fee of around £20.00 or take their sofa/fridge/mattress to the dump. Quite frankly I am fed up of leaving notes downstairs on the cork board for neighbours who have no intention of complying with what's written!
Catching a fly-tipper in action
So as I said above, it was around 09:30 on 2nd Februray 2017 when i was cleaning my windows when I spotted this guy launching stuff into the bushes. I couldn't believe what I was seeing so I took out my iPhone and took a few snaps (see pics below).
He had a huge Mercedes Sprinter van which he was emptying the contents into the bushes. I got back into my taxi to get a shot of his number plate (see pic below) and as I pulled alongside his van he said "what's your problem"? I said I didn't have a problem and that he would have one when I reported the matter to Newham council.
Contacting Newham Council about the fly-tipper
When I arrived home, I uploaded the photos to my computer and set about finding Newham council's website to report the fly-tipping incident.
I submitted my first incident report on 2nd Feb 2017 and Newham council closed the incident ticket with a "problem solved" note. I thought I was going to get a call at least or a follow up email asking for the photos I took of the perpetrator but no, they just closed the ticket and never even bothered to clean up the mess.
So I submitted a second ticket to them to see if there was anyone else with half a brain at the council who could take this further. This ticket was submitted on 7th Feb 2017 and was also closed with the "problem solved" reply! The waste was neither removed and I know this as I use this cut through quite often and it was still there for everyone to behold.
The third and final ticket was submitted on 15th Feb 2017 and was closed with the same reply as the other two - this time however, Newham council did manage to find the time to go round and clear the rubbish the fly-tipper left.
Let's see if the Police can do anything
So, faced with the fact that Newham council didn't even want to entertain the idea of convicting a fly-tipper who was seen in the act by me (a witness), who has photo evidence along with exact times and dates, I turned to the boys in blue.
I contacted Crime stoppers and let them know exactly what happened and that Newham council were contacted on 3 separate occasions but nothing was done. I told the Police I had evidence of this guy with a nice face shot along with some pics of his Mercedes Sprinter van.
Now you would think the Police would follow up on this, wouldn't you? I logged back into my account anonymously only to find that the police had indeed read my message but asked for no other evidence, ie. photos etc.
Therefore I am "done" as it were. Here I stand with photographic evidence of this piece of trash dumping stuff illegally and nobody wants to do anything about it. ITV recently ran a few news items and they too have seen my photos but would have loved some video footage - seriously! This clown wanted to attack me and you want it videoed too?
So finally, if anybody is looking to report something to Newham Council regarding fly-tipping, I hope they have better luck than me. I suppose if I joined the fly tippers and started dumping stuff around the borough of Newham, it wouldn't be long before I felt the strong arm of the law on my shoulder or maybe not - perhaps the Police are more interested these days in giving unsuspecting drivers a £200 fine and 6 points on their licence for looking at their mobile phone! But anyway, that's a story for another day.
Photos of the fly-tipper
The enquiries that I lodged with Newham council and that were closed without results
The Fly-tipper in action
Fly Tipper's Blue Mercedes Sprinter Van Registration Number LF51 OWR
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