Anger at huge piles of fly-tipped waste on estate

Selfish fly-tippers have turned a patch of open land into a haven for vermin by dumping large piles of rubbish there.
Fly-tipped waste in Norley HallFly-tipped waste in Norley Hall
Fly-tipped waste in Norley Hall

Huge amounts of waste have been accumulating behind a row of houses on Lamberhead Road in Norley Hall for the past few months.

The ground is now strewn with everything from television sets and household items to piles of building rubble and debris.

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Unhappy residents say the area is now giving off an unpleasant smell, with the problem expected to get worse once temperatures start to rise, and providing a home for rats.

The council has confirmed the patch of land is in private hands and the owner has been ordered to clear it up.

One resident, who asked not to be identified, said: “It is a complete shambles. It has been quite unkempt for a few years but recently the rubbish has been steadily accumulating. They are probably tipping stuff there a couple of times a week.

“There’s vermin on there and it’s not nice at all.

“It’s particularly concerning because it’s right at the back of the houses on Lamberhead Road.

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“There’s an odour there now so in summer it will just be unbearable.

“Whoever’s responsible for this just seems to think they can do whatever they want. At the moment it’s being used as a household tip.”

Another said: “The trouble is that once one person has dumped their waste on a piece of land, it gives the green card to every other unscrupulous Tom, Dick and Harry to do the same.

“This has to be one of the worst cases of fly-tipping I have ever seen though: it is an absolute disgrace.”

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The problem area covers several hundred square metres and stretches behind around half a dozen homes.

Wigan Council confirmed it has served a community protection order on the site, demanding the landowner cleans up the mess and ensures fly-tipping does not happen in the future.

The site is located close one of the borough’s fly-tipping blackspots, with Ormskirk Road recently identified through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests as the individual road in the borough with the biggest waste dumping issue in 2016-17.

Figures released by Wigan Council showed there were 23 examples of fly-tipping on the street in the 12-month period, two more than Glebe Street in Leigh which had the next-biggest problem.

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The data shows the problem is also getting worse across Wigan and Leigh, with 1,818 incidents of fly-tipping recorded in the WN postcodes in 2016-17 compared to 1,759 in the previous 12-month period.

And while the Wigan Today photographer was on her travels she also came across another unsightly fly-tipping on land off Scot Lane and near to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.