Oldbury parkland is used as dump by fly-tippers
A batch of rubbish, including an old car, was dumped at parkland in the Black Country, much to the frustration of a local councillor.
Fly-tippers left piles of debris at the area off Pitfields Close, Oldbury, marring the expanse of greenery on the site.
However, after residents contacted Sandwell Council officers they were out on the park within 24 hours to get rid of the rubbish from the wooded area.
The council's work has been hailed, but criticism has been levelled at the people who dumped the waste.
Council leader Councillor Darren Cooper said: "As soon as this was brought to our attention, we sent a crew out to get this cleared up."
The authority was informed about the fly-tipping on Tuesday by a concerned resident.
A team was sent out to tackle the problem the next day and bagged up the rubbish amid muddy conditions.
Oldbury councillor Mahboob Hussain said it was disappointing to see fly-tippers targeting Sandwell's green spaces.
He said: "The council has invested thousands of pounds into keeping our streets clean and we've increased the opening hours of Oldbury tip so people have easy access to it and can come with anything they want.
"We've seen massive improvements and the borough is getting cleaner.
"But the people who do these type of things are not helping and they are costing the local authority money to move these things.
"Spending thousands of pounds dealing with fly-tipping when the local authority is going through some massive cuts is disappointing and doesn't help the council in any way.
"So far we haven't made any cuts to our recycling or rubbish collections and continue making those collections and getting the borough cleaner on a regular basis."
Councillor Hussain said anyone contemplating fly-tipping should think again about the consequences of their actions.
"This wastes valuable man hours as staff have to clear the mess up and also costs the
cash-strapped council thousands of pounds," he said.
"There have been massive improvements across the borough and it is much cleaner now than it was so to see people dump this sort of stuff is frustrating.
"People can quite easily take these things to the tip and that's what they should be doing,
"Fly-tipping is having a major impact on our budget."
