I have had an email from Sam, which he wished to pass on. Anyone else have this problem/ any solutions?
"I have a problem with people dumping rubbish illegally along the track through my piece of woodland. This has been mainly farmyard rubbish such as tractor tyres and empty plastic containers. The tyres are perhaps the worst problem because you have to pay to get them disposed of properly. I actually buried a couple of them using a mini digger that I hired to excavate a track in the woods. I'm sure that somebody will tell me that this is ecologically unsound but these things are huge and will take a lot of time and energy to move to a proper disposal centre. In my experience the local council are not very helpful. They will consider setting up a camera to try to catch offenders but don't offer any help in trying to move the rubbish. My advice to anybody else suffering this problem is to look carefully at the rubbish for signs of where it comes from. Recently 5 large plastic chemical drums on pallets were left on the lane. One of the drums still had the label of the original supplier. I phoned that company and from a tracking number on the drum were able to locate the local company that had bought these drums. The supplier then put some pressure on the local company and they collected the drums and removed them. I think that what happens here is that a man with a large van gets paid for removal and disposal of rubbish. He dumps the rubbish and keep the disposal fee for himself. But if the companies / farms then have to pay to get the rubbish moved again then the man with the van will lose that business in future.
I could tell you more about the large metal items that mysteriously arrive in my wood and then disappear a few weeks later (presumably when the thieves have found a dealer prepared to buy them for their scrap value). However I don't want to be spreading too much doom and gloom about some of the baggage that comes with owning a piece of woodland. So I'll finish by saying that bluebells and foxgloves are flourishing this spring along the tracks that I have cut through the thick bracken and this helps to make the effort I put into cutting the tracks all seem worthwhile."