Portland footpath hit by flytipping (From Dorset Echo)

Portland footpath hit by flytipping

12:30pm Friday 31st August 2012 in News By Laura Kitching

Raymond Berkhauer is upset at the flytipping near his house

A PENSIONER is calling for a mass of flytipping to be removed from a Portland footpath before it becomes even more of a ‘blot on the landscape’.

Raymond Berkhauer, 64, said nothing had been done since he reported the dumped mattress, domestic ovens and other items to the borough council’s environmental health department at the beginning of May.

He is dismayed to have been told he should pay out for a Land Registry search to find out who owns the land at the end of Leet Close.

Mr Berkhauer, of Underhill, said: “I first reported it at the beginning of May.

“The biggest problem is trying to find out whose land it is.

“In the end the council suggested I get in touch with the Land Registry people but to do that I have to pay for them to make a search.

“I’m just a pensioner, trying to get things done. I can’t afford it.”

The flytipping turned up ‘approximately 30 yards from Mr Berkhauer’s house overnight at the start of the summer and over the past couple of months other items have also been dumped there.

He added: “Originally when I rang environmental health they said they would find out whose land it is and instruct them to move it but now everybody seems to be pushing the responsibility on to everyone else.

“The trouble is people see it and keep adding to it.

“It probably doesn’t mean much to most people but it’s a blot on the landscape.”

Mr Berkhauer has lived on Portland for almost five years and said he loved the area and the ‘beautiful sea view’.

He said: “It’s all been left next to a footpath, which is popular with bird watchers.

“This rubbish is upsetting a lot of people.

“One chap who lives nearby is trying to sell his house and it doesn’t look very good when people come around.”

County councillor Tim Munro, who lives in Underhill, Portland, described flytipping as a ‘nasty, pernicious, horrible thing to do’.

He said: “If it’s on private land, unfortunately it’s up to the owner to move it. It is unfortunate because they become the victim of someone else’s illegal behaviour.

“If it’s on borough land, you phone the council and they send out a team to collect it. I don’t know why people want to drive to Portland and dump their stuff, it’s a nasty, pernicious, horrible thing to do.”