A SECOND home owner was fined £50 and threatened with court action after he dumped his rubbish at a recycling centre in Aldeburgh before leaving the town.

By Richard Smith

A SECOND home owner was fined £50 and threatened with court action after he dumped his rubbish at a recycling centre in Aldeburgh before leaving the town.

The man, who lives in Essex and occasionally stays in Aldeburgh, thought he was being a good citizen when he took his black sacks of domestic rubbish to the Fort Green centre to avoid them attracting foxes.

He did not want to leave them outside a property in Moverley Way for a couple of days until they were collected by rubbish collectors.

But eagle-eyed council staff sifted through the contents of the bags to discover his identity and when his son-in-law visited the house he found a letter enclosing a £50 fine.

The man, who has not been named, apparently paid the fine “under protest”.

A Suffolk Coastal District Council spokesman said: “Over the last year or so we have regularly publicised the fact that we will take action to tackle the increasing problem of people using Fort Green recycling centre as a place to leave domestic waste.

“There are warning signs at the centre making it clear that it is an offence to leave any domestic waste.

“There is no excuse or reason for people to use Fort Green as anything than a place where they can take items to be recycled.

“If they have domestic rubbish that they want to dispose of then they go slightly further up the road to the county council household waste site at Leiston.

“We have written to letting agents and second/holiday home owners specifically reminding them that Fort Green should not be used for leaving rubbish. We have also reminded them that the Suffolk Coastal Services commercial service visits Aldeburgh four times a week and could collect the domestic waste produced by their paying holiday guests, although of course there is a charge for the SCS service.

“People should be aware that whether at Fort Green or any other of our 230 recycling centres, they must not leave domestic or other rubbish, and that they risk the possibility of being fined if they do not obey these rules that are there to keep our communities clean and tidy.”

Roger Warren, an Aldeburgh district councillor, said yesterday: “We have an ongoing problem of the disposal of rubbish from second home owners. They cannot just deposit rubbish at a recycling centre which is an offence against general legislation.”