EFFORTS to tackle flytipping have been blasted by parish councillors.

John Firmin, a South Swindon parish councillor for the central ward, said more cash needed to be put into prosecuting those who dump rubbish around Swindon.

“It’s a choice what you put into enforcement and currently the choice is to do the minimum it would appear,” said Coun Firmin.

Flytipping has been a constant source of irritation for residents in the parish, particularly around the streets of Broadgreen and Eastcott where secluded back lanes are easier to access and residents of rented homes regularly move in and out.

South Swindon Parish Council’s planning committee heard representations from one Shrivenham Road resident furious about what he believed was lack of action from the borough on flytipping.

Alistair Flockhart wrote to councillors after alerting the borough’s waste team to dumped garbage around the County Ground.

He said: “I’ve reported fly tipping on countless occasions and I think that Swindon Borough Council will only collect the waste and won’t investigate or prosecute.”

Coun Stan Pajak told fellow parish councillors: “In the Eastcott area we’ve got a constant problem. There’s flytipping every week. Blue bags left in the street and yet very little seems to have been done about it.”

Fellow councillor Imtiyaz Shaikh (Central) said he had stopped a group of youngsters from setting fire to waste dumped behind Armstrong Street.

Referring to a fatal house fire on Manchester Road in 2016, Coun Shaikh said of the interrupted arson attempt: “These things are getting a bit more dangerous and having had past fires in this area it is a bit scary.”

Coun Firmin wanted the council to prosecute more flytipping offenders: “While it may be expensive and you may not win them all, in terms of getting some prosecutions that are successful that has to be a higher council priority.”

But he urged residents to keep reporting incidents of flytipping to ensure the full scale of the problem was known by councillors and council officers.

Responding to the criticism, a spokesman for Swindon Borough Council said: “We respond to all incidents of fly tipping that are reported to us. We always look for evidence in fly tipping and this must be present for us to be able to take any form of action.

“Where appropriate a fixed-penalty notice will be issued and, in more serious cases, a prosecution may be deemed appropriate, however, this is not always the case. People can report fly-tipping incidents via swindon.gov.uk/flytipping.”