PILES of rubbish dumped by flytippers are an increasing risk to our wildlife and environment.

As the post Christmas clear outs begin in households across the county, flytipping becomes a real problem in certain areas.

An especially large pile of rubbish, including a pushchair, clothes airer, cardboard boxes and other bags of waste was found dumped on Edington Hill on New Years Day by village resident Rupert Lescott.

He said: “My wife spotted this huge pile of rubbish when she and my two daughters were on a walk on New Years Day, and when they told me about it I was so angry I went up there and took some photos.

“People tend to dump their rubbish around here as it is a dead end and they hope people wont see them do it.

“I imagine they just couldn’t be bothered to wait until the recycling centre opened, and were having a clear out after Christmas and just dumped it all here.

“We are very fortunate to live in such a beautiful part of the country, and we must all do our part in keeping it clean and tidy, dumping stuff like this is just unacceptable and ruins the lovely views we have, as well as being bad for the environment.

Bridget Wayman, cabinet member for highways, said: “I find it a real shame that people resort to driving to remote spots within this beautiful county to dump items when they can go directly to one of our household recycling centres, and dispose of it properly.

“We have a zero tolerance policy to flytipping in Wiltshire. I’ve said it previously, we won’t hesitate to fine or prosecute offenders when we catch them. Our enforcement team is extremely vigilant when checking through items which have been flytipped and we take every step necessary to find the culprits. Once this process has been completed, our highways team is then asked to remove the waste.

“I would urge anyone that witnesses someone flytipping to contact us on 0300 456 0100 to make us aware. If you wish to report flytipping please log it through My Wiltshire, details of which are on our website at www.wiltshire.gov.uk/mywiltshire-download.”