COUNCIL officers charged with tackling fly-tipping in Broadgreen were said to be out of their depth, after a waste fire claimed part of a woman’s garden fence.

One Rosebery Street woman, who was woken in the early hours by a neighbour alerting her to the blaze, said residents were used to fly-tipping in the alleyway behind their homes. But she called the latest incident especially frightening.

Swindon Borough Council says it had plans to install CCTV cameras to tackle those who dump litter.

Residents were woken shortly before 4am on Tuesday morning by a neighbour on his way to an early shift at work. Firefighters from nearby Drove Road station managed to extinguish the blaze, which had spread from a collection of 30 dumped Holsten lager cans to a wooden fence.

Romaine Smolinski, 65, said: “This is the first time it’s happened when we were asleep. It’s frightening. My granddaughter’s just got a motorbike that was in the garage. If that had gone up she would have been devastated. She’s put her savings into that.

“I think the council is out of its depth. I don’t think they’ve got a clue anymore.”

But she swore not to be beaten by the fly-tippers: “We might be the last ones here, but we’re not going down without a fight.”

Sheila Ireson, 70, who has lived on Rosebery Street since her early 20s, said she had spoken to a borough council officer hours after the blaze. She claimed she was told that, because the cans had been dumped on a small patch of raised concrete just inches off the main lane, it was her responsibility to clear the waste - and not the council’s.

“I’m not saying the council isn’t making an effort to clear the area. They are.” But as soon as the litter was cleared, more appeared in its place, she added.

“We have a lot of rented property in this area. When they leave their rented accommodation the tend to leave their mattresses. We’ve had a set of kitchen units and bathroom fittings dumped in the lane.”

Neighbour Paul Izquierdo, 76, added: “The council keeps clearing it, but it’s not the issue. The answer is to hit the fly-tippers in the pocket - hard. The council has been promising cameras for so long, but we haven’t got any here.”

Swindon Borough Council said its environmental crime team was stepping up enforcement action against fly-tipping in Broadgreen.

A spokesman added: “We have plans to install CCTV cameras and to take other preventative measures in the coming weeks, and we will be seeking to issue fines where appropriate.

“We respond to all incidents of fly tipping that are reported to us but if the rubbish is dumped on private land, as it appears to have been in this particular case, then we cannot remove it as we do not have the resources to do this consistently to be fair to all residents.”