Once more Sheffield's Graves Park is used as a council tip.

[Cyclone 10]

I wonder as well whether I am the only person who has bothered to contact the local councillor to try and get some clarification on the situation? The response seems to be they are aware that a lot more rubbish than they would of liked has accumulated and although the site has been used as a temporary storage area for a long time the pens constructed are not up to the amount that has built up because of the time of year and the lorry with the grab arm has needed repairs. However with the installation of two large skips this will if nothing else tidy the area up . As this has now been volunteered to me I'm quite prepared to leave it for a few days before taking a wander up there to check on progress. I managed to find out a few things with a minimum of effort and so am slightly suprised that the friends of the park aren't persueing a similar tack and then giving their members an accurate update on the state of play.

 

So it is an official policy to store this waste next to a popular green space? (is the park and SSSI or anything)?

[barpen 10]

I wonder as well whether I am the only person who has bothered to contact the local councillor to try and get some clarification on the situation? The response seems to be they are aware that a lot more rubbish than they would of liked has accumulated and although the site has been used as a temporary storage area for a long time the pens constructed are not up to the amount that has built up because of the time of year and the lorry with the grab arm has needed repairs. However with the installation of two large skips this will if nothing else tidy the area up . As this has now been volunteered to me I'm quite prepared to leave it for a few days before taking a wander up there to check on progress. I managed to find out a few things with a minimum of effort and so am slightly suprised that the friends of the park aren't persueing a similar tack and then giving their members an accurate update on the state of play.

 

I imagine it is because Friends of Graves Park are pretty used to this sort of thing and well able to keep their membership updated with the facts rather than that load of hogwash.

 

---------- Post added 15-07-2014 at 14:31 ----------

 

So it is an official policy to store this waste next to a popular green space? (is the park and SSSI or anything)?

 

Funily enough 15 years ago a similar thing happened. The council were fly tipping in Graves Park. They tried to deny it until this photo went on the front page of The Star. They then tied to claim that Norton Nursery wasn't part of the Graves Park Charity and attempted to sell it for housing. The Charity Commission had other ideas and threatened legal action.

 

 

The City solicitor wrote a letter to the commission accepting that this land was indeed part of Graves Park and that the land had been wrongly developed as a depot.

The Charity Commission ordered the council to restore the area to parkland. So far around 50% of the land has been cleared, pollution removed and trees planted.

 

A few years ago the council again attempted to take this land from the Graves Park Charity and allow St Lukes to build on it. Once again the Charity Commission ruled that this was a missuse of the land that belonged to the Graves Park Charity. Once more the council was forced into another expensive climb down.

 

So once again we find the very same plot of land being missused and the same claims that the land isn't part of Graves Park. How long will it take before the Charity Commission once more remind them that it is?

Edited July 15, 2014 by barpen

[WallBuilder 10]

I suppose the rubbish that the park users generate has to go somewhere and when I think about it there used to be an area of woodland that had a lot of green waste collected there and then over by the football pitches near Cobnar cottage there was a couple of skips and usually a pile of rubbish with everything from road cones to broken park benches in evidence. This was right next to the main path and in the summer was not the most attractive of smells. These two sites are nowadays clear and so I'd imagine they've been moved to their present location which obviously is better but needs some better way of storing it temporarily

In reference to my previous post I was merely reporting what I had been told so if it turns out to be a load of hogwash then I'll be on the case although after having looked at the Facebook page of the friends of Graves park I didn't notice much in the way of answers being asked from the council

Edited July 15, 2014 by WallBuilder

[purdy 10]

I suppose the rubbish that the park users generate has to go somewhere and when I think about it there used to be an area of woodland that had a lot of green waste collected there and then over by the football pitches near Cobnar cottage there was a couple of skips and usually a pile of rubbish with everything from road cones to broken park benches in evidence. This was right next to the main path and in the summer was not the most attractive of smells. These two sites are nowadays clear and so I'd imagine they've been moved to their present location which obviously is better but needs some better way of storing it temporarily

In reference to my previous post I was merely reporting what I had been told so if it turns out to be a load of hogwash then I'll be on the case although after having looked at the Facebook page of the friends of Graves park I didn't notice much in the way of answers being asked from the council

 

You are right the rubbish that a park generates has to go somewhere. That place is called the incinerator.

There is no problem with the grass mowings from the cricket pitch or a bit of shreded timber being stored in a corner of any park. But the contents of the dog muck bins, and the park waste bins should go straight to the incinerator, or are you suggesting that it would be OK for all your street's wheelie bins to be emptied into a huge heap of bin bags at the end of your road until there was enough to fill a truck and be carted away?

[Eater Sundae 12]

I'm not very familiar with Graves Park, having only been on a few occasions, but I'd be pretty annoyed if the same sort of tipping were happening in my local parks.

 

However, in terms of moving forward and getting something sorted, I think Wallbuilder's measured approach is much more sensible than some people's response on here. (There was someone else with similar measured comments a few day's ago, but I cannot view earlier pages at present to check his/her name - they used the phrase "it doesn't matter who you vote for, the council always gets in").

 

Clearly, if the council are tipping (or authorizing tipping) where they shouldn't, then it needs sorting. It took several days to get to the state it is. Once the powers that be have all the information, only then can they sort it out. I doubt they can sort it out in an afternoon. See what the situation is in a couple of days, then escalalte it if need be.

[wellyman 10]

You know when you go to the Lav and have a number 2. Afterwards you flush and it's gone.

 

Over the years this has proved to be a good plan. In Victorian times before the flush toilet, excrement would fester for weeks in earth closets. This was the main reason for cholera and other eppidemics that shortened life expectancy in Sheffield to around 30.

 

Since those times folk have generally thought that leaving faeces kicking around for days on end wasn't a great idea.

[WallBuilder 10]

I raised the point myself several posts back about the stuff going to the incinerator but it's obviously going to be much more cost effective to remove larger quantities of waste all at the same time. Maybe a legitimate question the friends could of been asking is can a different solution be developed. It's unfortunate that there seems to of been a problem with equipment at this the busiest time of year for waste disposal and has then been brought to the public's attention in a rather one sided way without bothering to get accurate information or a response from the council officers responsible.

[SHYTOT 10]

 

Clearly, if the council are tipping (or authorizing tipping) where they shouldn't, then it needs sorting. It took several days to get to the state it is. Once the powers that be have all the information, only then can they sort it out. I doubt they can sort it out in an afternoon. See what the situation is in a couple of days, then escalalte it if need be.

 

Actually as the council have rather a lot of form is this regard, and are fully aware of what is going on, a better plan is to put the information about it into the public domain, inform the Charity Commission, the newspapers, the TV and radio companies etc etc. Then if the council do clear all the crap out of the area and stop tipping there we can come back and say well done.

[barpen 10]

Jack Scott is always pretty active on Twitter, so I asked him what was happening, this is what I got back;

 

Jack Scott ‏@Jack_Scott 26m

understand is beig sorted tomorrow. Was because a vehicle broke down.

7:41 PM - 14 Jul 2014

 

So keep an eye out, should be all clear tomorrow !

 

I just dropped by to take a look. Guess what? It's still there.

[Penistone999 10]

I just dropped by to take a look. Guess what? It's still there.

 

Good old Scotty boy . always banging on about being tough on fly tippers , yet he is fly tipping on an industrial scale. :hihi:

 

Still , its shouldnt be too difficult to find those responsible should it Jack ........ they work for YOU. can we assume those council employees who have been fly tipping will be prosecuted , hey Jack ?

[Vincero dOro 10]

There's new photo on web. It doesn't look like much has changed.

 

[polo mint 10]

I raised the point myself several posts back about the stuff going to the incinerator but it's obviously going to be much more cost effective to remove larger quantities of waste all at the same time. Maybe a legitimate question the friends could of been asking is can a different solution be developed. It's unfortunate that there seems to of been a problem with equipment at this the busiest time of year for waste disposal and has then been brought to the public's attention in a rather one sided way without bothering to get accurate information or a response from the council officers responsible.

 

I really wonder where you are trying to go with this. You do come across rather as a council employee trying to justify tipping dog crap in a public park.

 

So just try this for size. Cost effective doesn't come into it. Taking the stuff and tipping it out in Derbyshire would be cost effective. But like tipping in a public park is both immoral and indefensible.

 

Similarly the comment about equipment brakedown. It doesn't matter. They shouldn't be dumping there in the first place. They wouldn't have a problem pumping the cack out of the park if they hadn't tipped it there in the first place.

 

Dumping in a public park is not acceptable. I'm not interested in tales about cost effective storage or equipment brakedown. It shouldn't be there in the first place. If they stop doing it and shift what is there and then clean up the area folk will stop complaining about it.

 

Simple really when you think it through.