CCTV helping with fly-tipping around Telford flats

A project to clear littering and fly-tipping around blocks of flats in Telford is showing signs of success, a parish council was told.

Hollinswood & Randlay Parish Council is set to draft in the anti-littering artwork of primary school pupils as part of a project that has also seen three 24-hour CCTV cameras installed near flats in the Deercote area.

Parish council clerk Katrina Baker MBE told the council on Monday (September 1) that they still have a problem with some owners of flats who allegedly fly-tip furniture after tenants are evicted or leave.

“The CCTV project has been very successful,” the clerk told a meeting of the Asset and Property Committee.

“Anybody that drives in, they are able to see and get registration numbers. They’ve been quite successful with that.”

The parish council has been working in partnership with Telford & Wrekin Council, Idverde and Veolia, and landlords and management companies to address issues around the flats and Deercote.

But the clerk warned that it “isn’t putting off the people who own the flats”.

She added: “They still think it’s acceptable, when they evict a tenant or a tenant just leaves. to put what they had in the way of furniture et cetera just out and expect somebody to come along and pick it up.”

And she said because it is on private land the parish council gets into “a fight” with the borough council every time to get it cleared up.

She added that while the rubbish is present “you end up with more people thinking it’s OK to add to it”.

She told councillors that “it’s a project in progress but from the CCTV point of view it’s successful and overall it is looking so much better”.

They also have “another issue” with grass cutting by management companies but that is being pursued with Telford & Wrekin Council. She said this is because the borough council is ‘not allowed’ to tell her who the management companies are.

The council was told that the actions are “going down well with the population”.

Next on the agenda is to put up signs that were designed by children at Hollinswood Primary School.

The winners of a design competition were announced at a recent school assembly and it is hoped a date will be arranged later this month for the children to have their photos taken at a special event.