Edinburgh must get tough over this illegal dumping ground – Steve Cardownie

People who blight the environment by fly-tipping must be caught and prosecuted, writes Steve Cardowne.

Fly-tipping must not be tolerated, says Steve Cardownie

Last Saturday morning, I was walking the dog down by Gipsy Brae when I noticed that fly-tippers had dumped a number of items in the wooded area adjacent to the walkway.

Given their size, it was obvious that they had been transported by some sort of vehicle, but instead of making their way to one of the public dumps at Seafield these morons decided to just offload their rubbish where they would be unlikely to be caught.

The scenic route from Gipsy Brae to Cramond has unfortunately been used as an illegal dumping ground before and when I was councillor for the area I regularly reported incidents to the cleansing department which then had to despatch operatives to clear up the mess.

The people who dump their unwanted household items illegally don’t give a toss about anyone else, once they are offloaded, they are someone else’s problem and if the local environment suffers as a consequence – tough!

This anti-social behaviour is not new but hopefully it is decreasing, with schools in particular hammering home the message about safeguarding our environment.

Unfortunately, there are still some selfish clowns around who will ensure that our environment is blighted by their discarded goods – the more that are caught and prosecuted the better it will be for the rest of us!