'Quite frankly, it's doing my head in': Warwickshire farmer shares frustration over flytipping

A farmer from Warwickshire says he's had enough of rubbish being dumped on his land, which he has to pay to get removed.

Will Oliver has photographed countless incidents of flytipping on his land over the last eight months.

He's calling for the maximum £50,000 fine for offenders to be given out more often, to deter them from ruining his land and his livelihood.

Will said: "On private ground, the council aren't responsible to pick this up. So this now becomes the landowners responsibility, and we haven't got the time to go around picking up everyone's rubbish. And quite frankly, it's doing my head in."

He added: "If you got glass bottles smashed or there's wire, all these things, even when it gets cleared up by the council, there's no saying they pick everything up and like you say, there's wildlife.

"We've got livestock on the farm and we have a busy job ourself trying to look after these animals and look after our farm without this happening on a daily basis."

The latest government statistics released last month show there were 14 flytipping incidents per 1,000 people in the West Midlands from 2021 to 22.

91,000 people were handed fixed penalty notices across the country, that's up by almost 60 percent.

However, these figures are only for tips on local authority land, with the Country Land and Business Association saying much more is happening on private land, which is unrecorded.

In those instances, it costs landowners £1,000 pounds on average to clean up the waste.

Will hopes harsher penalties will be enforced and said: "I want people who are caught to be prosecuted and put a big fine on top of them.

"A £50,000 fine and make sure it makes the front page of the newspapers so people realise the risks that they're putting themselves and their businesses through when they put this rubbish out on the roads."