One of the most pressing issues facing residents currently is the serious fly-tipping at The Mound “Bring Site” in the Tattenham Corner car park. As well as large amounts of illegal business cardboard there is fly tipping of household items, business waste, building rubble and even surplus and decaying food waste which attracts rats.
There have long been issues at this site which are particularly evident at weekends. By Monday morning the site can be overflowing with refuse which our Council’s employees regularly clean up. It can take two teams of council workers several trips to collect the cardboard and clear out all the fly tipped material.
The situation has deteriorated possibly because other recycling sites outside the Reigate & Banstead area have been closed resulting in more rubbish being taken to our site. The bulk of the problem is illegal dumping of large quantities of business cardboard and illegal fly tipping of building rubble and waste. Only private residents can legally take material to The Mound, however this is not made clear in the current signage. The current signs are old and in poor condition and are obviously ignored by many people. The RA are pressing for better and more explicit signage
Cllr Jill Bray and several RA Committee members have had a meeting with council officers about this issue and supplied the council officers with an image based presentation. (See here). They are working together to devise and introduce effective measures to reduce the seriousness of this issue.
Members of the Residents Association have been monitoring the site on a daily basis. Although it is recognised that illegal dumping is taking place measures to curtail this are still being discussed by the council and the RA. Currently there is no CCTV at the site despite the claims on the signs.
Many residents using the site are not breaking up and flattening the cardboard before putting it into the bins, thus wasting bin space. Also we have observed that, even when the site is overflowing with rubbish, some of the bins at the back of the bays have been empty while much cardboard is being left on the ground or piled on top of bins which still have space for more cardboard inside.
We have attempted to address this particular problem by asking the council to remove the blue lids on the bins used for cardboard making it easier to put the larger pieces in the bins. This measure appears to be having a positive effect and will be monitored by the council officers.
This site is intended to be a recycling facility for local residents. However residents should be aware that council cleansing staff will collect reasonable amounts of cardboard that are left neatly stacked by the black cardboard and paper bin on collection days. This can reduce the need to visit the site. And most households have mixed recycling bins.
Residents should be aware that the UK government may be introducing new requirements that all households should have access to effective kerb side recycling pickups by 2026. The council is considering closing down recycling sites if this comes to pass.
There is a more detailed article in our Spring Magazine ( see here ) which has been delivered to all households recently. The RA Committee has invited Councillor Avery, Executive Member for Neighbourhood Services for Reigate & Banstead, to attend our AGM later this month. We hope that concerned residents will attend this meeting.