A COUPLE are fed up with flagrant fly-tippers after spotting 12 piles of rubbish dumped by their house in one day.

Rosamund McCarthy has lived in Buckingham Road, South Woodford for over 15 years.

The production accountant, 52, and her partner John, 53, claim fly-tipping has always been an issue in their part of South Woodford.

But after they spotted 12 separate fly-tips as they walked the 300 metres between the end of Buckingham Road and Stanley Road last week (January 16) the pair decided enough was enough.

When Ms McCarthy raised the issue at Redbridge Council’s Local Voices Matter forum that day, enforcement officers assured her someone is fined for fly-tipping in the borough “almost every day”.

They also said 15 re-locatable council cameras are currently being built and will move between notorious fly-tipping hotspots to try to catch people out when they are finished in March.

But the couple say on-the-spot fines are “just papering over the cracks of the problem” and want the authorities to eliminate it once and for all.

Ms McCarthy said: “We’ve noticed the problem getting worse and worse over the past nine months or so.

“These people are very secretive, so we’ve got no idea who’s doing it.

“They pull up in vans, open a side door, chuck a load of rubbish out and drive off.

“We get rubbish bags, suitcases, and all sorts of building waste – it’s disgusting.

“Two weeks ago there was an office chair in the middle of Grove Road. It’s just not acceptable.”

A lot of the rubbish is being thrown over the barrier that runs along Grove Road into the woodland that borders the North Circular, which could mean Transport for London are responsible for clearing it up.

Mr McGee says both authorities need to work harder to deter people from fly-tipping by carrying out a comprehensive investigation into who is doing it, including those offering cheap quick fix waste disposal in the area.

He said: “They need to find out who it is and make sure they can’t do it again.

“They are wasting so much money paying people to pick up rubbish week in week out.

“The whole problem needs to be cut off at the source.”

Ms McCarthy is also encouraging her neighbours to ask people who they are and what they are doing if they suspect they might be fly-tipping near their homes.

She claims that with more cameras and greater levels of vigilance, people will be put off.

She said: “A camera will always have blind spots but I’d let them attach one to my house if it meant sorting this out.

“It could affect house prices, it’s bad for wildlife, it’s unsightly and dangerous.

“I nearly crashed my car the other day because I didn’t see a pile of bricks that had just been dumped on the road.

“We need to put a stop to it now because the whole area could fall into decay very quickly if nothing is done.

“If people think it’s okay to dump their building waste, someone walking along with a can isn’t going to think twice about chucking that by the roadside too.

“We all need to take responsibility for our environment or before you know it the whole place will be covered in rubbish.”

TfL’s head of highways Nick Aldworth said: “We are sorry residents are experiencing problems of flytipping along Grove Road and thank the residents for bringing this to our attention.

"We are making arrangements to remove the material as soon as possible and will set up regular inspections to monitor the situation, while working with Redbridge Council to try and identify and implement further measures to help prevent a reoccurrence.”

A Redbridge Council spokesman added: "We are currently trialling a number of different methods to help change behaviour around dumping rubbish and these trials will help us make decisions on our future approach to stop fly tipping at its inception. "