London fly-tippers could soon find their faces on ‘CCTV wall of shame’ | UK News

A council is taking drastic action to clamp down on litter louts at a London housing estate by introducing a ‘CCTV wall of shame’.

Mountains of rubbish have been left strewn across the street at Gascoigne East estate in Barking for ‘months’ and residents say the mess is regularly attracting rats and foxes.

Barking and Dagenham council said it has been inundated with complaints by locals about the growing piles of waste on the redeveloped estate.

And now it has vowed to expose the culprits by putting up Big Brother-style cameras and then sharing footage online of anyone caught in the act.

The problem has escalated because of both fly-tippers and locals not using bin stores properly, according to the council.

‘We are working urgently to install cameras to monitor which will be published on our fortnightly wall of shame series to identify perpetrators,’ a spokesperson said.

‘We have immediately taken action in response to reports from residents and will continue to work with them to resolve this issue.’

But Matt Lismore, 29, a social housing campaigner who lives on the estate, criticised the CCTV camera plan.

The 29-year-old said: ‘It strikes me as a cheap way of dealing with the issue.

‘It creates the appearance that they are being tough on fly-tipping, when the reality is you won’t find a street in Barking and Dagenham that isn’t littered with fly-tipping.

‘It seems like the council are showing contempt for residents.’

Gascoigne East estate hit the headlines last month after a balcony collapsed, putting fear into families that the same may happen to them – and since then residents say litter has become the next problem.

Tamas Sebok, 41, who has lived on the estate since 2018, said: ‘When I go into work in the morning the street is littered with rubbish.

‘We don’t have a proper facility to get rid of rubbish, so when it is windy it gets blown all over the street. It’s starting to attract rats and foxes.

‘I noticed that people have started using a storage room to put their rubbish in, and it’s not being collected away.

‘There just isn’t enough bins at all to use, so I assume that is why some residents have to put it there – they don’t have any other choice.

‘What are they supposed to do when there aren’t enough bins? It’s just disgusting isn’t it? We are going to get serious rat problems if it is just left there to rot.

‘It’s going to spread disease and it is a potential fire hazard as well.’

Campaigner Mr Lismore also hit out at the rubbish issues, and accused officials of ‘failing’ residents.

He said: ‘Residents in these homes are paying up to £2,000 per month in rent and they deserve better.

‘This issue has been ongoing now for several months and there are no signs of any improvement.

‘We as residents are growing increasingly tired of having to live in a sea of garbage and the accompanying vermin. I don’t think what we are asking for is unreasonable.

‘Most days we see piles of garbage stacked high in the streets and loose in the bin stores.

‘On windy days the garbage blows around like a tornado of litter. You often see rats scurrying around due to the piles of poorly managed waste.’

A Barking and Dagenham council spokesperson said: ‘Unfortunately, this is a problem with some residents not using the Underground Refuse Storage system correctly.

‘There may also be the possibility that people who do not live on the estate are dumping their waste which is a fly-tipping offence, and our enforcement teams are looking into this.

‘In response, we have increased the visits by our caretaking staff to five times a week.

‘We are also carrying out engagement work with the residents to help them familiarise themselves with using the bins, which is a new system for this area. The bins have more than enough capacity to deal with the waste generated.’

The Gascoigne East development replaced the 1960s era Gascoigne Estate and was intended to create a ‘welcoming, well designed neighbourhood for residents and the wider community’, according to a publicity blurb.

But residents were left fearing for their safety when a balcony collapsed last month.

Huge pieces of rotten wood and debris fell onto the pavement in front of a block on November 11.

A spokesperson for developer Bouygues previously said it would take ‘immediate action’ over the balconies.

In Peterborough, families say they have been ‘held hostage in their homes’ by a plague of wall-climbing rats that ‘break into cars’.

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