Costly Out of Hours Donations

Out of Hours Donations
The VWHDC (Vale of White Horse District Council) sent out this picture from May 2018 of two mattresses left outside the Sue Ryder charity shop. It was part of a press release warning against leaving donations out of hours at charity shops.

The usual course of action would be to arrange for the mattresses to be taken to a registered waste and recycling centre so they could be disposed of legally.

Initially the person who left the mattresses outside the shop was given a £240 fixed penalty notice with the option to pay in installments. That was not paid, and was followed by a court summons and the total bill with fines and costs went up to £1300.

Cllr Elaine Ware, Cabinet Member for Housing and Environment at VWHDC said: “If you wish to donate items to charity you must check first that they are happy to accept them.  If you simply dump goods next to a shop then you are fly-tipping and could face a fine or prosecution.”
Out of Hours Donations
Even more costly was a donation to Acacia UK in Abingdon that was set alight. The shop is still boarded up eleven months later.

There is a planning application (dated 1st August 2018) for the shop to ‘Strip out of modern materials following a fire to inspect historic materials and form/agree repair plan.’

4 thoughts on “Costly Out of Hours Donations

  1. Janet

    The council tip at Drayton charges now for certain items. I took a small bag of rubble there and they wanted to charge £1.50 for it. I cannot see the sense in this as they get rid of rubble for road fill. Someone dumped a load of tyres down Peep O Day lane.

    Reply
  2. daniel

    You are again correct Janet – it makes no sense. Does anyone know how much WRG(?) or whoever runs the tip pays US for the contract to do so?

    I do so love the way The Veil can go after “the little man” with such vim and vigour…yet let the big fellas get away with whatever they like.

    Reply
  3. Michael Bloom

    The boarding up of Acacia UK is causing a hazard and an obstruction as it juts out into the street. There is barely enough room to pass and it forces pedestrians to walk in the road, which is narrow and dangerous at that point. If building work is not going to start soon, can it not be removed and replaced with boarding flush with the wall?

    Reply
  4. Helen Flynn

    I cannot see the point of Councils charging for people to use tips. It is because of this that flytipping around the country has increased tenfold, If the flytipping gets reported the council then has to arrange for collection and disposal, which costs them money. Can someone please explain the logic of this because it is lost on me!

    I other problem is that many tips are now only open five days a week, (due to government cutbacks l am told) and so they are more often than not closed at weekends when people are most are likely to want to use them.

    Reply

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