Rubbish is dumped in East Calder beauty spot by council!

Jul 9 2009 by Alistair Watson, West Lothian Courier

FED-UP residents of East Calder have accused council workers of ruining a local beauty spot.

Members of the local community were angry this week to discover large chunks of concrete and tarmac strewn across the woods at Oakbank, to the west of the town.

Contractors working for West Lothian Council had been digging up and repairing a path at Oakbank Road.

And residents claim they have dumped the waste from the job in the woods rather than take it to proper landfill sites for disposal.

The mess left by the workers then attracted other fly-tippers who piled their rubbish on top of the discarded piles of tarmac leaving the whole area in a disgraceful mess.

After furious residents contacted West Lothian Council about te situation the mess was cleaned up the following day by council workmen.

But disgruntled residents claimed the workers had shown the area a lack of respect with their actions.

And they have also accused the council of double standards when it came to fly-tipping.

One resident, who walks his dog daily in the woods, said that it was ironic that the council were literally forced to clean up a mess of their own making.

He added: “How much do the council spend on telling people not to fly-tip? I bet it is a considerable amount of money every year.

“And yet here are people who are working for the council doing exactly what the local authority tells local people not to do - it is crazy.

“You just don’t dump this kind of rubbish in the middle of what is a well-known beauty spot.

“Such actions only encourages other people to dump stuff and this is exactly what happened in this instance.

“Shortly after workers dumped the concrete other items appeared.

“It’s a very popular area for people of the area to walk their dogs in and children play there all the time.

“There are also houses opposite where the workers and other fly-tippers had dumped the rubbish and it became a bit of an eyesore.

“Fly-tipping in its own right is simply not on but when the council do it then it really does stakes the biscuit.

“It shows a complete lack of respect for the people who live round here by the council.

“If it had been local residents who had dumped this rubbish then we would be in court for it.”

A West Lothian Council spokesman said: “We were made aware of an issue with fly-tipping in the Oakbank area of East Calder on June 30.

“The area was cleared up the following day, and we are currently looking into the incident.

“We would encourage anyone who spots fly-tipping to contact us on our 24 hour litter hotline on 0800 616446.”