March 15, 2023 7.00 pm This story is over 17 months old

Call for CCTV along River Witham amid ‘constant’ flytipping

Trolleys from nearby supermarkets regularly get dumped there
Examples of the waste pulled out by RiverCare Grantham volunteers | Photo: RiverCare Grantham
By Local Democracy Reporter

A councillor has called for CCTV cameras to be installed along the River Witham in Grantham which has become cluttered with waste.

Supermarket trolleys and even a whole litter bin have been found amongst waste dumped in the river or along the nearby footpath.

Grantham St Vincent’s Councillor Charmaine Morgan (Independent) brought the ongoing issue to the attention of the Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday, although she has asked for cameras to be installed on more than one occasion.

She has since confirmed that she is in talks with Councillor Mark Whittington (Conservative) to take the proposal further.

Councillor Morgan told The Lincolnite: “Unfortunately, we have a major problem with flytipping where shoppers will push their shopping home in a trolley and then dump it into the river.

“We even had a recent incident where someone tipped an entire council litter bin into the water.”

She added that at one point a few years ago, there were 12 recovered supermarket trolleys being housed by the council in a storage bin.

Volunteers from RiverCare Grantham fishing out a supermarket trolley from the River Witham | Photo: RiverCare Grantham

“We have lots of wildlife in the river like ducks and swans and of course, they are affected by anything that’s left in the water,” Councillor Morgan said. 

Over the course of 2022, South Kesteven District Council received a total of 1,533 reports of flytipping, with used furniture, building waste, white goods and tyres being among just some of the items regularly found.

However, there were only three successful prosecutions as the majority of cases were of a type which would be unlikely to contain evidence.

RiverCare Grantham is just one of the environmental groups that help clean the body of water of this waste.

While Co-Lead David Martin isn’t entirely confident that cameras would help increase the number of prosecutions, he is confident that they would help deter flytippers from the area.

He said: “They could be seen as a deterrent for someone not to do it. Although I think they would still intend on getting rid of it elsewhere.”

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