A former Wiltshire resident has been slapped with a £400 fine for not checking if the person they paid to take away their waste was licenced.

The waste, which the person paid £50 to remove, was then found fly-tipped at Windmill Hill Plantation in Ludgershall.

Wiltshire Council could not chase the perpetrator as the resident did not help to identify the fly-tipper.

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A spokesman for the local authority said: “If the resident had correctly checked the waste carriers license details with the Environment Agency, provided details about the collectors and vehicle registration/description, this would have allowed enforcement officers to trace the offender and the resident would have avoided a fixed penalty notice.”

The resident has since been given a £400 fine, which will be reduced to £200 if paid within 10 days.

Recently, the council has used new powers in seizing vehicles involved in fly-tipping with two such offenders' vehicles awaiting destruction.

Mark McClelland, cabinet member for waste said: “We desperately want to trace and prosecute the person(s) responsible for dumping rubbish, but we can only trace the fly tippers when residents comply with their duty of care by doing these checks and retaining the information.

“People should be wary about using a ‘man with a van’ or similar adverts on social media to dispose of waste. Many state they are licensed and are responsible but aren’t and simply take the cash and dump the waste.”

Meanwhile a Swindon man has been hit with fines of £700 for fly tipping waste in Broad Hinton, Wiltshire.

Environmental enforcement officers traced the waste back to another Swindon resident, who assisted the council in identifying the culprit after being duped by a social media advert.

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The man was formally questioned by the police and fines were issued for fly tipping and waste duty of care offences by Wiltshire Council environmental enforcement officers.

Fixed penalties were deemed appropriate for this small scale fly-tipping, anything larger or hazardous would have resulted in a prosecution in court.

Mark McClelland, cabinet member for waste said: “We are committed to increasing resources to crackdown on waste crimes like fly-tipping and littering. We’ve had success in prosecutions, but we will do more and stop people like this spoiling our beautiful countryside.”

Residents can report fly tipping online by visiting www.wiltshire.gov.uk/mywiltshire-online-reporting, or calling 0300 456 0100.