Flytippers have turned Norwood’s estates into waste dumps since the closure of a popular local tip, residents claim.

Every week unscrupulous builders are driving vans on to estates and unloading commercial rubbish, they say.

Central Hill, Berridge Road, Vincennes, and Rosendale Gardens estates have all seen a 50 per cent increase since the Vale Street tip became a recycle only centre, according to Norwood Housing Forum Chair, Jean Haley.

She has demanded the council install temporary CCTV cameras on the estates to catch the flytippers and act as a deterrent.

Lambeth Council closed the household-rubbish only tip in an effort to push up recycling rates, and stop builders posing as residents dumping their commercial waste there.

The local authority said it was incurring expensive landfill charges as a result.

But residents say the action has only dispersed the builders, responsible for an estimated 80 per cent of the waste dumped at the tip, into offloading their waste on the estates.

Last month the council claimed flytipping results had actually fallen since the tip closed.

But Mrs Haley presented dozens of photos of the rubbish heaps at a recent tenants’ council meeting as documentary evidence to the contrary on estates.

She said: “Every week I am confronting white van drivers who are offloading their waste here.

“It must be costing the council thousands of pounds in fees for their contractors to come and pick them up, and the council is stuck with the waste again.”

A Lambeth Council spokesman said he was sorry to hear of the concerns but added: “We don’t believe that fly-tipping on nearby estates is connected with the changes at Vale Street, as the evidence is that fly-tipping actually decreased slightly on estates in the weeks after the centre went recycling only.”

He said the council was using CCTV to monitor offenders and information had been sent to residents to make them aware of a free bulky waste service.

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