Glasgow: Bin men chased by rat as they clear away rubbish

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George Brockbanks was sick of the amount of rubbish being left on a street near his home in Swindon, Wilts. The 66-year-old started by complaining to the council on a few occasions, but eventually took matters into his own hands when he wanted action to be taken faster.

Mr Brockbanks proceeded to dump rubbish outside Swindon’s council office alongside a note asking them to get in touch with him.

He said: “It’s a protest. I’ve lived in the area for probably 18 years, and I have seen the area just go downhill, a lot of it with rubbish.

“The rubbish got to such a state for me, I just couldn’t put up with it no more.

“As soon as the bag goes out, then the birds get in there, and the cats and the foxes, and it just gets all ripped up.”

The angry resident first took a bag of rubbish to the offices on May 13, but claimed to get no response despite leaving his name and telephone number alongside the garbage.

Mr Brockbanks added: “No response. Nothing happened and the rubbish was getting worse. The weather was getting hotter, so it was getting bad.

“On June 6, I picked up some more rubbish, I took it down to the council offices, put it on their front door again, I left a note on it, and I made sure the van was parked directly outside.

“I knew if I took it to them, then something would happen.”

According to Mr Brockbanks, the bags contained “clean rubbish” such as packaging, polystyrene, a bag of clothes and more.

He said: “There were bags I couldn’t pick up and put in my van because they were just rotten, it was full of flies, it was so reckless.

“But I didn’t want to do that because it wasn’t fair to whoever had to clean out the other end, because it wouldn’t be the people in charge. So, it was clean rubbish.”

Mr Brockbanks’ self-proclaimed “protest” of fly-tipping was ironically met with a hefty fine from the council – for fly-tipping.

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He added: “I thought this time somebody would get back – they did get back with a £300 fine if you pay it now or £400 if you don’t within 14 days.”

After his story was widely shared on social media, the council ended up getting in touch with him and withdrew the fine.

Mr Brockbanks said: “They want to have a conversation and said that I wouldn’t be paying the fine and wouldn’t be taken to court.

“But also we need to educate people as well. There needs to be more signs up which say that this is illegal to dump rubbish.

“You need to address the problem back to its roots or it’s never going to go away. This is no good to just come and clear it out, because as soon as you clean up, people put rubbish up there.”

Mr Brockbanks, who works as a roofer, met with the council last week to discuss the issue of fly-tipping.

A Swindon Borough Council spokesperson said: “We met with Mr Brockbanks earlier this week and had a very positive discussion about the fly-tipping issue in his area.

“A number of options have been discussed and we will be looking to put some in place as soon as possible.

“We would like to thank Mr Brockbanks for his co-operation, and we’ll continue to update him in the following weeks.”

Mr Brockbanks is hopeful that change could come now that he has met with the local authority.

When asked if he ever considered moving somewhere else because of the issue, he said: “I am seriously thinking of moving, if this isn’t sorted out.”

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