Lane flytippers left 150 beer barrels

Flytippers dumped 150 empty steel beer barrels in a Staffordshire country lane – stacked neatly down both sides of the road.

The barrels were dumped in School Lane, Little Wyrley, overnight between Monday and Tuesday this week. It is believed a large vehicle would have been needed to transport them with possibly three people, a driver and two others, to unload them.

Cannock Chase Council environmental health officers believe unloading and lining tup would have taken a significant amount of time and would have blocked the lane.

They have appealed for help finding those responsible for the dumping – the latest in a series of flytipping incidents on the lane. People who might know where the barrels came from are urged to come forward.

The barrels were originally supplied to the Coors brewery, Burton upon Trent, which has been contacted by the council.

The US-owned drinks giant agreed to collect the barrels at no cost to the council but could not find where they were delivered to as there are no serial numbers on the barrels. Despite the firm picking up barrels Cannock Chase Council has said it will pursue the offenders for flytipping offences.

Last month two 45-gallon drums of industrial acid were dumped in a ditch on School Lane, costing the council £800 to remove. Flytippers can face a £50,000 fine and up to five years in prison if convicted.

Karen Sulway, Cannock Chase Council environmental protection officer, said: "Although the barrels once had a scrap value we are being told scrap merchants are now turning people away because the value is much less than it was and they have got a lot of scrap to process."

Councillor Tony Williams, cabinet member for environment said: "The council will do all it can to to trace those responsible and prosecute them because these people are environmental criminals. I was actually in School Lane earlier this month to meet a resident there and during that visit we came across asbestos which had been dumped and I got that cleared up that day."

The council is awaiting the granting of gating orders from the county council to close School Lane to all but farm traffic. Clearing up flytipping in Cannock cost the council more than £24,000 last year.