Landlord told to remove piles of fly-tipped rubbish

An old sofa, a bed frame and a mattress are just some of the items of fly-tipped rubbish dumped outside a boarded-up property.

A video shared on social media by Cardiff city councillor Neil McEvoy showed the furniture and piles of bin bags left outside the house in Ely.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) the situation on Wilson Road was "unacceptable", adding: "This has been here a good while now, according to residents."

Cardiff Council said it was private land but it had served a notice to the landlord on 16 February ordering them to remove the rubbish within 14 days. The LDRS has made attempts to contact the landlord for comment but has received no response.

A spokesperson said failure to remove the rubbish would result in the council taking legal enforcement action to clear the waste and recover the costs of doing so from the landowner.

There were nearly 5,600 fly-tipping incidents in Cardiff in the last year, which the council previously said "harms the environment and costs taxpayers".

New figures out this week showed there were 48,367 fly-tipping incidents in Wales in the year ending March 2025 - the highest number for 17 years.

About 71% reports involved household waste.

The biggest increases were in Denbighshire - largely due to better data capturing of incidents - Vale of Glamorgan, Merthyr Tydfil and Caerphilly.

Meanwhile, 27,749 enforcement actions were taken in Wales, 9% more than the previous year.

The government is currently reviewing fixed penalty notice limits for fly-tipping and household waste duty of care offences.

A spokesperson said funding had been given to Fly-tipping Action Wales to provide 150 cameras so local authorities can target hotspots and help clean up communities.

Grants have also been awarded to Denbighshire, Flintshire, Neath Port Talbot and Pembrokeshire councils for enforcement and camera-based projects.

Huw Irranca-Davies, Deputy First Minister with responsibility for climate change, said: "There is never any excuse for fly tipping. It blights our streets, countryside and communities, and people the length and breadth of the country are rightly angry about it.

"We are determined to clean up our communities and these new cameras will help us do just that."