Flytipping campaigner left red-faced after his waste discovered dumped on rural Preston road

Gordon Wang, chairman of Ingol Community Association, forked out £80 for his old kitchen, bathroom and broken Christmas decorations to be taken away by a tradesman.

But the “massive” heap of waste ended up flytipped in a country lane in Lea, taking council staff hours to clean up.

Now council bosses are working to trace the culprit, after pictures of the rubbish were shared more than 600 times on social media.

Gordon, 57, who lives in Barry Avenue in Ingol, said he had been “duped”.

He said: “I’m having a new kitchen and bathroom so everything has been ripped out and put in the front garden where, when it was all done, I was going to hire a skip and get it taken away.

“A friend of mine saw this man in his van, pulled him up and said, ‘A friend of mine wants to get a load of stuff out of his garden’ and he said he could do it for £80.

“He came round, loaded it up, I gave him the £80 and he went away.

“The next day I got an environmental crime card from Paul Cookson (Preston Council’s enforcement officer), who said, ‘Look at Facebook’.

“I saw the pictures and I thought, ‘That’s all my stuff’.

“I thought it was a bona fide company. It had a company name, phone number, email address.”

Gordon has campaigned against rubbish being dumped in the area and said: “I’ve been knee deep in fly tipping rubbish, looking through bags, so I’m dead against it.

“The last thing I want to be is involved with a fly-tipping incident.

“It just shows it’s so easy to think you’re doing the right thing, but if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

“I was absolutely livid.”

Gordon said the man he paid to take away the rubbish told him he would collect about three or four loads of rubbish together and then dispose of it properly.

He said: “It’s so easy to be duped.

“I’m a victim in a way. I’ve lost £80 thinking I’ve done it right.

“I still feel guilty because it was scattered all over the countryside road and it could have caused an accident.”

The pile of waste, dumped in Back Lane off Darkinson Lane in Lea, was spotted by neighbour Ged Carberry.

Ged, 67, took photographs of the rubbish with a broken Christmas decoration at the front and put them on Facebook, and they have since been shared more than 600 times.

He contacted the council about what had happened and shared his CCTV footage with them, and they are now following “positive” leads to trace the person responsible.

Ged said: “If the power of Facebook has succeeded in catching the culprit then it’s quite an achievement.”
Through the number of shares, the rubbish was traced to Gordon’s house and council officers were able to contact him.

Paul Cookson, enforcement officer at Preston Council, said: “One of our street cleaning crews were tasked to go to Back Lane, the entire road was blocked off with a massive dumping, and I was called to the scene.

“It’s waste coming from a major refurbishment with a bathroom and kitchen, and it appears the person who has dumped it has driven down the road with a truck and opened the tail lift.

“With all the chit chat on Facebook, we’ve identified the source of the waste and we’ve now been given some details of person responsible for removing the waste from the address.

“So we are in the process of tracing the person and speaking to him.”
Mr Cookson said there was very little within the waste to have identified its origin, and said: “It was only because of the involvement of Ged Carberry and Facebook that we managed to identify the property and spark up inquiries.

“So it does prove social media can be helpful with our inquiries.”
He said the dumping was classed as a “major incident”, because the road was blocked and it took two teams nearly two hours to clean it.

He said: “Our estimate is probably about £300 to the council to clear the waste.

“That doesn’t include the cost of the investigation and prosecution so it has a major impact on council tax payers.”

A council spokesman said the authority was following “positive lines of inquiry”.

He added: “It is the responsibility of the person whose rubbish it is to dispose of it properly and they should use only reputable and licensed removers, or call the council.”