JOHN Croft and his colleagues thought they were doing a good turn by moving rubbish off the road into their yard.

But now Swindon Council has told them that they have to pay to dump it at the Barnfield Road tip or are liable for a fine if they put it back where they found it.

John, who is operations manager at Centurion Weston Construction, says the problem of fly tipping in Aylesbury Road has got so bad that rubbish has been blocking the entrance to his company's car park.

He says his company has been removing black bags full of domestic rubbish, sofas, ovens and fridges but is now being penalised for trying to be good citizens.

"It's a stalemate situation," he said. "We contacted environmental services who basically said yes it was tipped on the pavement and it should have cleared it.

"But now we have moved it half a metre onto private property, then it has become our responsibility and if we move it back onto the street, it will fine us.

"For the past seven weeks we have been taking rubbish down to the Barnfield tip in our own transit van but four weeks ago we were told we couldn't do that any more.

"You can only dump household waste there and because we are a company, we have to pay.

"So we said we'll put it back where we found it onto the public road and it said we'd get a fine."

John added that he is not sure who has been dumping the rubbish but it has been going on for a long time.

"We've always had people dumping. We've put up with it in the past and cleared bits away, but the last two weeks its got worse," he said.

"We've been clearing it up regularly so people can walk down the street."

Adrian Ruck, a spokesman for the council, said: "The council, in its enforcement role, has been aware of this problem for some time.

"We are currently in discussions with the owner of the property about whether or not waste has been fly-tipped. Discussions are on-going."