Hertfordshire farmer left with over £6,000 industrial-scale fly-tipping bill
Local farmers are increasingly faced with large-scale incidents of fly-tipping
A Hertfordshire farmer has been left to deal with one of the largest fly-tipping incidents in the area, with mountains of waste illegally dumped on her land, including household rubbish, construction debris, and even a discarded cannabis farm.
Eveey Hunter, who grows combinable cereal crops, discovered the waste last week after the alarm bell was rang by a family member at the first sign of muddy tire marks on the edge of her land.
The dumping appears to have taken place over several weeks, during a period in which no work on the land is needed, allowing the incident to go unnoticed.
Ms Hunter said: "These things obviously get missed, like we can't have eyes absolutely everywhere."
The scale of the fly-tipping is staggering. "I'd say there was between 25 and 30 like van... like a typical sort of transit tip load there," Ms Hunter said.
Among the waste was "a whole cannabis farm" consisting of what she described as discarded dry plants, in addition to household rubbish, food rubbish, and large amounts of construction debris.
"I think there were three baths and probably eight mattresses and doors and then bricks, there was a whole load of roof tiles. Absolutely everything," she added.
Clearing the waste has been a significant burden, both in time and cost, she explained.
"We've had to get two lorries in, which take it to a rubbish tip and presumably sort through it, and that's going to be completely at our expense," she said, with the cost already exceeding £6,000.
As the landowner, Ms Hunter is solely responsible for the clean up. A council fly-tip fund offers limited support, but she found it to be insufficient on such a large scale.
The lack of accountability for offenders is a major source of frustration.
"It just feels like you're being attacked from every angle and you just wonder who is left in the country that does appreciate farmers," she said. "It's just the disrespect with all of these rural crime-type cases—fly-tipping, theft, all this stuff. It's just the lack of respect for people that are just trying to feed the country."
The farm's location near London appears to be a factor in the problem. Just a short distance off the A1, there is a concern the farmland, along with other land located nearby, is chosen by criminals for its ease of access.
Ms Hunter said: "The other night when we had obviously noticed and we'd put a further barrier in front of the gate, I watched a van, loaded up with rubbish, drive past, obviously expecting to come in—so obviously been there before—saw that it was now shut, spun around. And so I followed them back almost to the A1 to go to London again because they've just been using it like a free tip."