Yesterday Mendip District Council’s Enforcement officers agreed to my suggestion to hold a public meeting with local residents to try and stamp out flytipping around Frome.

Mendip District Council officers gave councillors a briefing on how they are tackling flytipping and other environmental crime.  There have been some successes across Mendip in bringing cases and fines against offenders. However, so far the ongoing long term problem of near constant flytipping on Gypsy Lane, just outside Frome, has not been tackled successfully. After the briefing, I told officers and other councillors that I think much more could be achieved in tackling this problem if the local community and Council team started to work together properly to inform each other and join forces to deter and catch the flytippers who despoil our area.  Many local residents have asked me what is being done, and are fed up with the indignity of living in and around an area where country lanes are abused almost constantly by people making a fast buck from being paid to take waste from residents and businesses and dumping it there. I was pleased that Mendip’s Enforcement officers agreed to speak at a meeting to local residents, as they agreed it could help.

So I will be arranging a public meeting in the New Year at a local venue, about the flytipping on Gypsy Lane and other areas around Frome. I would like Mendip council officers to explain what they and other agencies are doing to tackle the problem, and how local people could help. Local residents can tell the Council what it is like to live in an area where this is going on, provide the Council with information that may help catch flytippers, quiz Council enforcement officers and find out what they can do. I hope to involve other agencies including the Police, Environment Agency and parish councils as well as other local councillors for Frome and surrounding parishes and wards.  At the end I hope that residents and the Council can learn from each other and take further action, and in this way we can really start to stamp out this nasty local problem once and for all.

Please get in touch with me if you have any ideas and can help.

Adam Boyden, 07809 284817, aomboyden@yahoo.co.uk

Please see here for previous information: http://adamboyden.mycouncillor.org.uk/2013/12/02/focus-flytipping-concerns/