Dumped rubbish and fly-tipping getting out of hand, say fed-up residents in Croydon street

By Harrison Galliven, Local Democracy Reporter

Residents say their once-beautiful Croydon road is blighted by rubbish, with huge piles of waste dumped in front gardens and illegally fly-tipped in the street.

Black bin bags, broken pieces of wood and cardboard boxes can be seen piled high or tossed in bushes and on pavements as you walk along Gonville Road.

The street, in Thornton Heath, is lined with 19th century terraced houses. While many residents believe the road was ‘once a nice place to live’, they now say it has become overrun by a pervasive fly-tipping culture.

One terraced house has its entire frontage filled with overflowing black bin bags and assorted household items. Alongside these items, there is also a large amount of food waste.

While this rubbish is not illegally fly-tipped as it is contained within the boundary of the property, locals say it constitutes an environmental problem.

According to neighbours, this particular build up has been there for more than a year, and has begun to attract more foxes and rodents to the area.

A neighbour living close to the property said: “This whole street has become like a garbage dump. It used to be a beautiful street. People don’t care any more.”

Fellow Gonville Road resident Ron Middleton said: “Whenever people move in, whatever is left behind, they chuck out on the streets.

“I saw a lady dragging two mattresses out of her house, and she took them around the corner. The following day, I noticed that someone had tried to burn the mattresses.”

There is even more rubbish at road’s junction with Thornton Heath Road. The shrubbery backing onto flats is often the target of heavy fly-tipping, despite the presence of a dummy camera and fly-tipping sign in the area.

Ron’s frustration led him to email the council about the state of fly-tipping on the road.

Mr Middleton added: “I email the council a lot. Their response was that they have teams that go around looking at the severity of the issue and find the priority spots. If you look generally around Thornton Heath’s streets, there’s so much stuff dumped. It’s unbelievable.”

Ron’s local councillor and Leader of the Labour opposition, Stuart King, said: “We reported this to the council back in November and are appalled that the situation has been allowed to worsen, despite our efforts to get the council to act.”

He added: “It is yet another example of the Mayor’s failure to tackle environmental problems like this, which sadly are all too prevalent across our borough.”

A failure to prosecute fly-tippers is seen by some as a key reason for the issue becoming worse. In 2022/23, Croydon was judged as having the second worst fly-tipping prosecution record in the country by the Department of Food and Rural Affairs.

Councillor Rowenna Davis, who has been campaigning against large fly-tipping hotspots in her Waddon ward, said: “Fly-tipping is gross, unhygienic and illegal. We see mums pushing prams by piles of infested waste, attracting rats and all sorts.

“What makes this worse is that Croydon has no enforcement for fly-tippers – which means criminals can come and dump their rubbish here without anyone batting an eyelid. The Conservative Mayor promised to clean up Croydon, but then he axed the officers that used to pursue fly-tippers.

“So now people are paying to clear their rubbish responsibly, whilst criminal fly-tippers are getting rewarded with free rubbish collection at the expense of the taxpayer.”

On X, Croydon’s Conservative cabinet member for finance, Jason Cummings, noted that the council’s previous Labour administration had also made cuts to the council’s enforcement team.

A recent Freedom of Information Request by TOG24 revealed Croydon had more fly-tipping incidents than anywhere else in the country, with 38,163 reports made between 2023 and 2024.

The council was also found to have spent over £1m clearing up illegally dumped rubbish over the same period. Croydon council has been approached for comment.

Pictured top: The unsightly rubbish tip is a common sight in Gonville Road (Picture: LDRS/Harrison Galliven)