Flytipping: Salford’s top five grot spots as rubbish dumping problems grow

The top five hotspots for flytipping in Salford have been revealed as the issue is continuously growing in the area and even causing some to want to move house.

Following a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service,  Liverpool Road, Lower Broughton Road, Langworthy Road, Highfield Road and Bolton Road were highlighted as the worst perpetrators for fly tipping in the borough.

Between January 2018 and March 2022 there have been 18,723 incidents of fly tipping in Salford. Liverpool Road has had the highest number of individual reports with 250.

The worst spots between 2018 and 2022 were:

Liverpool Road – 250

Lower Broughton Road – 164

Langworthy Road – 103

Highfield Road – 70 

Bolton Road – 70

What do residents say?

A couple who live on Highfield Road, one of the smaller streets in the top five, have said that they have considered moving because the problem of rubbish on their street has become so bad. Ernest and Barbara Ravenscroft, 86 and 78 respectively, have lived on Highfield Road for 58 years and raised their family happily until this recent problem has come about.

“We don’t know what is happening with it but we are just phoning the council and they come and pick it all up,” Mr Ravenscroft said. “It has not always been like this and it seems to be more of a recent issue.

“I have thought about moving really, keeping the house, picking it up and changing where it is. We try to keep our end clean but if they bring it down our end I end up moving it to the front so it gets collected by the bin men, I can trip on it now.

“It is mainly people from outside areas coming dumping their stuff here. I cannot walk up the back entry because it is that bad.”

The pair have said that the bins have to be brought to the front for rubbish to be collected and that causes issues in the summer with poor smells and an increase in flies from the bins. 

“The kids played out the back in the past but you could not do that now because of that,” Mrs Ravenscroft said. Everyone cleaned it and looked after it.

“I had the councillor down here to look at this and she agreed it was a mess and moved about four bags worth. But I think the council has allocated the back of the houses to us to get rid of the responsibility.”

The couple believed that more renters coming into the area has led to a lack of upkeep in neighbouring homes due to them not actually owning the houses. They said that their street was once a sought after area in Seedley but now it is just a spot for developers to make money off renters.

The other streets in the top five are much larger than Highfield Road so are more likely to have a higher number of fly tipping reports. However, the problem has gotten progressively worse over the last four years.

Number of fly tipping incidents by year in Salford

2018: 2,575

2019: 3,596

2020: 4,913

2021: 6,130

2022 (January to March): 1,509

What have the authorities said?

Addressing the number of incidents, a spokesman from Salford City Council said: “In Salford we have great pride in the city. We take cases of fly-tipping very seriously and prosecute offenders through the courts. 

“Fly-tipping makes the city look a mess and it can be very dangerous, particularly to children and animals. Thanks to information and reports from the public we direct our resources to where they are needed to clear up after offenders and investigate those responsible for the dumping. 

“We have 120 fixed public space CCTV cameras and 10 deployable CCTV cameras that we use to catch offenders. Over recent years we have seen more people working from home and as a result we have seen extra cases of side waste reported to us as fly-tipping. 

“Side waste is when people leave bags out alongside their bins. In the city we operate a closed lid policy and we do not collect anything that does not fit in the bin. 

“We deal with cases of these by sending officers to problem areas and also issuing fixed penalty notices when required. It is important to note that it is only a very small minority of people that make the city a mess. 

“We can receive numerous reports of fly-tipping for each individual case and regularly encourage people to report incidents to us.”

Salford City Council highlighted cases where people have been caught for these acts of flytipping and have been prosecuted. They include Benjamin Obejo, 45, of Silsden Walk, Salford, who pleaded guilty to illegally dumping a fridge freezer, black bin bags and other items on land at Harding Street, Salford, when he appeared at Manchester and Salford magistrates court on Thursday February 10, 2022. He told council officers: “Sorry, I didn’t know it was illegal.”

He was fined £200 and ordered to pay costs of £1000 and a victim surcharge of £34. The court heard that officers from Salford City Council’s CCTV team saw the driver and passenger of the rented van dumping the fridge freezer, bin bags, and other waste, on land at Harding Street, Salford just after 11pm on Tuesday September 15, 2020.