Birstall tip closure blamed for rubbish-dumping spike

More rubbish has been dumped on a road in West Yorkshire following the closure of a local tip, an opposition councillor has claimed.

Nab Lane household waste recycling centre (HWRC) in Birstall shut on 10 November, as part of a plan by Kirklees Council to save nearly £200,000.

Conservative councillor Joshua Sheard said Bankwood Way had become “Birstall’s new DFS” because of the number of sofas being dumped.

The authority said it had asked the landowner to clean up the private road, and was “closely” monitoring any rise in fly-tipping.

Sheard said rubbish had previously been dumped on Bankwood Way, but the HWRC closure “only exacerbated the problem”.

“You’ve got mattresses and a fridge which have just been thrown in the bush, and further down you get mounds of soil and rubble, which have thankfully now been cleared up,” he said.

While soil and rubble could not be recycled at the Nab Lane HWRC, Sheard said: “It proves that there was already a fly-tipping problem in the area, so why close a household waste and recycling centre and just make it harder for people to [legally] tip?”

It was now “inconvenient” for residents in his area, Sheard said, with queues at the alternative site in Dewsbury meaning people “can’t” get rid of waste “because of how long it’s taking”.

“I went down with my grandad [a local gardening business-owner] and sure enough, we were waiting a good hour, hour and 20 minutes, to get in. Other residents have told me it’s taken up to an hour and a half, an hour and 45 minutes.”

In a council meeting on 24 April, he called for congestion to be raised at the authority’s scrutiny panel, to “see where the council’s going wrong”.

When the BBC visited Dewsbury HWRC on a Friday lunchtime, there was no queue and users reported using the facility without delay.

However, one man told us disruption had been seen on other days.

“If I had to come tomorrow, Saturday, I would have been in the queue for – I would say – at least half an hour,” Muhammad Sohail said, having previously faced a 30-minute wait.

The 34-year-old, who lives in Batley, said it was “very hard” for people in his local area to travel to Dewsbury, adding: “When it’s traffic time, you can’t go anywhere.”

“Nab Lane has been open longer than I’ve been alive,” said Sheard, 23, explaining his “very very simple solution” – to reopen it.

Citing planning conditions, he added: “The site itself can actually be nothing other than a wooded area or a waste and recycling centre, so unless the council’s planning on spending thousands of pounds to upheave all the concrete and dig all the way down into the ground to relieve the compaction of the soil, there’s nothing else that it can be.”

Councillor Munir Ahmed, Kirklees Council’s cabinet member for environment and highways, said the authority took a “zero-tolerance approach to fly-tipping in Kirklees”.

“Following the closure of Nab Lane HWRC in 2024, any potential impact on fly-tipping has been closely monitored and action taken where appropriate,” he said.

He added that Bankwood Way was a private road, but council officers had contacted the landowner, “made them aware of their responsibility and ensured they cleared the waste”.

The BBC has made efforts to find out who owns the land.

Commenting on the delays at the HWRC in Dewsbury, he confirmed road closures and diversions were in place as part of Network Rail’s Transpennine Route Upgrade.

“We are working closely with [Network Rail] to minimise disruption for anyone accessing Weaving Lane, but there are occasions when traffic builds up at busy periods,” he said.

He added: “The site is often required to close temporarily during operational hours to safely allow teams to change over or compact the skips, which can lead to short periods of queuing.

“These are managed carefully and queues usually clear quickly.”

He said security cameras were in use to support efforts to deter fly-tipping, and encouraged anyone who spotted rubbish being dumped to report it to the council online.