Rats 'the size of rabbits' on city street plagued by fly-tipping

Rats "the same size as a rabbit" have infested a city street where fly-tipping is an ongoing problem, residents say.

People living on Pottery Road in Pillgwenlly, Newport, say it has become a "dumping ground" for bagged waste and discarded household items, while the disused and overgrown sections of the street have an "infestation of rats".

Newport is the worst local authority in Wales for recorded fly-tipping incidents, according to Stats Wales, with 7,318 incidents recorded between 2024 and 2025.

Newport City Council said it was "as sick of fly-tipping in our city as our residents are", adding that it was removing rubbish from the street every day and taking enforcement action.

Shane Williams, 48, who owns a property on Pottery Road, said the rats had been a problem on the street for more than 18 months.

He said one older woman on the street "was too scared to go out because of the fly tipping [and] rats, it's a bit disgusting".

He said they were "the same size as a rabbit".

David Wall, who has lived on the street for 44 years, said the piles of dumped black bags had contained dirty nappies, food waste and even a dead rat which caused a ghastly smell.

David, 63, said the last few years of dealing with the vermin and fly-tipping had taken a toll on his mental health.

"I just found myself being hyper-vigilant, constantly on edge 24 hours a day," he said.

He said the rats had made it into some people's homes.

"Some days, I would feel quite nauseous because of the stench of some of the hot spots where the rats tend to sort of congregate, festering rubbish.

"Especially in the summer months when you have flies and maggots. That would make me ill, that would make anybody ill."

David said the smell of rats was "unmistakable", adding "once you've smelled it once or twice, you can completely identify that, absolutely straight away".

"You can even see the grease on the walls where the rats tend to rub along with all the rubbish."

David said on one occasion "three little kids" were "chasing two rats around".

"I grew up in this area myself in a lot of old condemned housing, so as a child it was nothing to see a rat or a cockroach or anything like that.

"But this is a whole new thing... they didn't seem a little bit phased at all, these little kids."

Fly-tipping is an ongoing issue in many local authorities in Wales and the latest figures show incidents have risen to their highest number across the country in 17 years.

While Newport had the highest recorded number of fly-tipping incidents of any Welsh local authority last year, it did record a 10% drop in the number of incidents compared to 2023-2024.

Newport City Council said it had carried "almost 2,400 enforcement actions, the highest number of any local authority in Wales" between 2024-25.

The council said it had also taken specific steps to tackle fly-tipping on Pottery Road by installing CCTV cameras.

David said while the CCTV had resulted in some improvement, it "only captures the hotspots and not where offenders are coming from".

A council spokesperson added: "Pottery Road is an area known to us for issues. It is why we have CCTV cameras monitoring it.

"Our cameras have full coverage of the street. The placement of the cameras has led us to successfully fine one individual £400 for fly-tipping on this site, and we have two further cases which we are seeking to progress to prosecution.

"Our waste enforcement teams visit the street every weekday morning to monitor issues and remove any fly-tipping we find."

David said he believed the problems had been made worse by some city residents not understanding the recycling system, as well as black bags only being collected from households every three weeks.

Newport City Council added: "Dirty nappies and food waste should not be being dumped in black bags. We collect food waste every week as part of our recycling collections.

"We also run a dedicated fortnightly nappy and hygiene waste collection service, which people can request via our website.

"Although we are doing everything we can, there is also an onus on people taking pride in their area, by doing the right thing and disposing of their waste correctly.

"Ultimately, it is people who are fly-tipping, not the council, and the responsibility lies with them not to do it."

Fly-tipping Action Wales, a national partnership programme coordinated by Natural Resources Wales and funded by Welsh government, said fly-tipping "harms our environment, endangers wildlife, disrupts local communities and is expensive to clean up".

"In response to concerns raised by councils about growing levels of black bag dumping, Fly tipping Action Wales is working closely with local authorities on a national awareness campaign for the spring," the spokesperson said.

"The campaign will focus on raising awareness that leaving bags of waste next to public litter bins is still fly-tipping and will promote simple steps people can take to manage household waste responsibly."

Fly-tipping Action Wales said it was also supplying ten new cameras for use across Pillgwenlly to capture evidence of fly-tippers.