EXCLUSIVE Furious locals in UK city of culture claim their title is a joke as council allows fly-tippers to dump with impunity turning their homes into vermin breeding grounds

Daily Mail​

21-06-2025

Bradford is officially the UK's City of Culture - but furious residents say the honour feels like an empty slogan when they cannot walk their streets without stepping over filth as flytippers have been allowed to run rampant.
Locals say they are battling a relentless epidemic of the anti social behaviour which has seen their streets blighted by dumped mattresses, broken glass, discarded appliances and mounds of rotting rubbish.
Anger is growing not only at those who treat the city as a dumping ground but also at council officials, accused of failing to act decisively despite thousands of reported incidents and barely any fines handed out.
More than 10,600 fly-tipping incidents were recorded across Bradford in the past year alone, yet only eight people were fined.
And in the last three years, the council has handed out a miniscule £6,500 in penalties despite admitting they have cleared roughly 4000 tonnes from the street each year.
Melissa Butler, 30, lives in Bradford with her two young sons and a baby.
She told how her street in the Holme Wood suburb had become a dumping ground and a breeding ground for vermin.
Ms Butler said: 'It's just disgusting, honestly. Every time I look outside, there's more rubbish. It feels like it's coming from all directions - people just pull up in vans or cars and dump stuff like it's a tip.
'One day it's just a few bags, the next there's a mattress. I went to the supermarket and came back to find a front door dumped behind my house.
'I've got two boys, and they play out the back because it's safer than letting them near the main road - but they shouldn't have to play next to piles of rotting rubbish and the rats it attracts.
'The only reason we haven't had rats inside our house is because we've got a cat and a dog.
'The amount of dead rats I've found in the garden is terrifying. I'm a clean person. I work hard to keep things tidy for my kids. But people keep dumping their rubbish.
'I've called the council so many times to report it. I tell them over and over again, 'This needs shifting, my children play there.' And sometimes they do come and clear it - but it just builds back up again.
'Once someone literally dumped a load of rubbish right in the middle of the road. Not on the grass verge - right across the tarmac, so the people who live further up couldn't even get their cars through.'
Ms Butler said she had begged the council to put up a CCTV camera in a bid to deter flytippers, only for her pleas to fall on deaf ears.
She added: 'The second people see a camera, they'd think twice. But the council say they can't do anything until they've had enough reports. It's like pulling teeth trying to get anything done.
'I don't think people realise that some of us here really care. We clean up, we look after our homes. I don't want all that mess at the back where my children play. Nobody does. But the people who dump this stuff don't live here. They don't have to deal with it.'
More than 10,600 fly-tipping incidents were recorded across Bradford in the past year alone, yet only eight people were fined
And in the last three years, the council has handed out a miniscule £6,500 in penalties despite admitting they have cleared roughly 4000 tonnes from the street each year
Householders can be fined up to £50,000 and end up with a criminal record if they ask someone else to remove their rubbish and it is found to be fly-tipped.
From 2022 to 2024, the council traced just 32 households who used rogue waste collectors. Last year, ten households paid a combined £2,050 in fines.
Amanda Buckingham, 52, has lived in Bradford for nine years. Her frustration with the council has turned into exhaustion.
She said: 'When I first moved here, they said they were going to sort the rubbish out.
'But now it's everywhere, absolutely everywhere.
'I used to clean it all up myself - every week, for months and months. But in the end, I just gave up. It does your head in. What's the point when it's back a few days later? You get tired of it.
'The other day someone pulled up in a big white van, opened the side door, and just dumped everything on the grass.
'The council needs to actually do the job properly. You've got council litter pickers going, 'I'll get this bit and that bit,' but then they skip whole areas. What's the point in that? It's a waste of time.
'It's not just the council, though, it's people too. Some folk won't even carry rubbish in their pocket until they find a bin.
'I bet half of them go abroad and behave themselves - but they come back here and just dump it. Why can't they show the same respect at home?'
When Mail Online visited Bradford, our reporter found alleyways filled with detritus, including an abandoned fridge-freezer, graffitied mattresses and a shopping trolley filled with junk.
On a nearby street, Council workers - wearing blue bibs citing 'Bradford 2025 - UK City of Culture' - were clearing mounds of dumped bin bags.
Yellow 'crime scene' notices had been attached to another pile of flytipped waste, warning: 'This rubbish has been examined for evidence and will be removed soon'.
The note added: 'Did you see who dumped this rubbish here? Ring Bradford Council.'
Rebecca Crowe, 45, said the council's own tip policies are pushing people toward illegal dumping.
Council tax payers can apply for a permit to access waste disposal sites but they are not permitted to use vans or trailers to throw away bulky items.
Instead they must fork out £50 for the council to come and collect up to three items.
Ms Crowe said: 'I think the council's made it too hard for people to get rid of rubbish properly - that's why so much of it ends up dumped in alleyways and fields.
'I've got a car, but I can't fit a king-size mattress or a wardrobe in there, can I?
'They should allow householders to use a van at the tip at least once or twice a year. You'd see fly-tipping drop overnight.
'I've got a tip pass. I follow the rules. But if you make it too difficult for people to do the right thing, they'll find another way.'
Bradford Council says fly-tippers go to lengths to avoid detection by blacking out number plates or use fake plates.
They are planning to install ten more hidden CCTV cameras at known hotspots to catch offenders in real-time.
An existing camera caught a shameless fly-tipper dumped piles of rubbish on a Bradford street and then torching it.
In a seemingly rare success, Reece Dulay, 32, was last week hauled to court where he admitted chucking garden waste, car parts, plastics and scrap metal onto Law Street over several days last July.
Dulay had been touting for work on Facebook with the slogan 'no job too big' - despite having no licence to carry waste.
In a separate case, Claire Alyson Miller, 36, tipped the contents of a wheelie bin onto the street.
Miller pleaded guilty to fly‑tipping and was ordered to pay more than £1,000 in fines and clean‑up charges.
Curtis Delamere, a father-of-two, said rogue waste removal firms charge as little as £50 to fill a van - before driving off and simply dumping its contents elsewhere.
Mr Delamere, 30, said: 'We try to make the street look nice. But you walk a few yards down and there's just rubbish everywhere. It gets you down.
'We've had everything dumped around here - mattresses, fridges, TVs, gas bottles, even fire extinguishers. The grass on the field gets so long because the council won't cut it - in case their mowers break on all the junk.
'People just don't care anymore. It's become normal. I've got a four-year-old and an eight-year-old. They shouldn't have to step over bin bags and broken glass to play outside.'
Mr Delamere said fortnightly bin collections were directly responsible for the hike in fly-tipping in the city.
He said: 'The bins only get emptied once every two weeks - that's not enough. We're a family of four and we can easily fill two bins in that time. So what do people without a car do? They pay someone to take it away, and half the time that ends up dumped in an alley.'
'You can report it, and the council might send a van out to clear it. But then it just comes back again. It's like painting over rust.
'The money they're spending cleaning up all this could be saved if they just made it easier in the first place. Go back to weekly bin collections. Make tipping more accessible. Stop punishing people for trying to do the right thing.'
Figures show over 10,600 cases of fly-tipping were logged in Bradford in the last year alone - up from 10,193 in 2023-24.
The council estimates that the overall tonnage of fly-tipping it clears is expected to fall rom 4,803 tonnes in 2023/24 to 4,000 tonnes this year.
At a town hall meeting in March, independent councillor Rizwan Saleem told how he was 'fed up of seeing mattresses at the bottom of my street'.
He said: 'We need to catch the people doing it or they will keep doing it over and over again.'
'A lot of residents know where the waste comes from, but don't want to grass up their neighbour.'
Nationally,local authorities in England dealt with 1.15 million fly-tipping incidents in 2023/24.
The cost of clearing large-scale dumping cost taxpayers more than £13m.
Fly-tipping is a criminal offence and can result in an unlimited fine or up to five years in prison. The council can prosecute or issue fixed penalty fines, currently set at £400.
The council's Environmental Enforcement Team, working in partnership with the Police's Operation Steerside Team, can also seize vehicles involved in fly-tipping offences which helps to disrupt waste crime.
Cllr Sarah Ferriby, Portfolio Holder for Healthy People and Places, said: 'We are working hard to maintain a clean and attractive environment, especially when a global spotlight is on our District in our City of Culture Year but also beyond this, so that we can all take pride in it.
'But we need everyone's help in reporting incidents of littering and fly-tipping. If you see something, whether it's fly-tipping, someone throwing litter from a vehicle or general littering, please report it.
'Action will be taken. Anyone thinking of fly-tipping is warned they will be fined or prosecuted. Using one of our Household Waste Recycling Centres is free if you live in our District.'