A local city councillor in Birmingham has spoken out about an act of fly-tipping that he described as “staggeringly irresponsible”. The incident occurred at Acocks Green railway station and was captured on video, which was shared on Twitter. The footage shows rubbish being flung over a fence and onto the tracks at the station, although the person responsible is hidden.
Councillor Roger Harmer, who represents Acocks Green for the Liberal Democrats, has called for action to be taken to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. He shared the video on Twitter and commented, “Taking place in broad daylight and risking derailment of passing trains.”
The councillor met with the police to discuss the issue, and they suspect they may know who the culprit is. Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Councillor Harmer said, “If you go and have a look, the environment is littered with fly-tipping, so it’s clearly happened many times before. Bags of rubbish and all sorts of stuff just thrown over the fence onto the embankment, and it’s very steep and as you saw on the video, stuff is likely to go all the way down it.”
He also explained that another footbridge nearby, which is slightly less steep, is also a fly-tipping hotspot. In fact, it is so bad that a bollard has been erected to stop people from parking vans full of items to dispose of there.
Asked what he is doing to address the issue, Councillor Harmer said he was trying to convince the council to give the ward a mobile camera that could be moved to different hot spots to catch people in the act of dumping their rubbish. He believes that there needs to be a “larger number of prosecutions for the lower medium level fly-tipping because if you don’t do that, fly-tipping just becomes an accepted part of life and something that people end up doing routinely.”
Councillor Majid Mahmood, Cabinet Member for the Environment at Birmingham City Council, has also commented on the issue. He said, “Last year, Birmingham City Council invested an extra £7.2 million into cleaner streets initiatives, which included our popular Mobile Household Recycling Centres and extra fly-tipping crews.”
The incident at Acocks Green railway station highlights the ongoing problem of fly-tipping in many parts of the UK. It is hoped that the council’s investment in cleaner streets initiatives, along with efforts by local councillors and law enforcement, will help to deter people from committing these acts of environmental vandalism in the future.