'How can people live like this?': Councillor SLAMS filthy street in Northampton – and the 'lack of action' from Reform-led WNC

Labour councillor Rufia Ashraf, ward councillor for Dallington and Spencer, has slammed the state of Sandhill Road in St James, where dumped rubbish has become a persistent problem.

She said: “Fly tipping and litter seems to be taking over our ward. I have been reporting as instructed by the council to report fly tipping and all that happens is they come along and collect it. If you're going to take away rubbish for free, people will leave it out, but we have a bigger issue. I think it’s due to lack of communication and also talking to people and telling them not to leave bags or bins out too early.”

She said there is a lack of enforcement from West Northamptonshire Council, both now under Reform and in the past under the Conservatives.

She said: “There's no enforcement, we hardly see any wardens and I have been battling this with the council for years and I’m so frustrated. Just before Christmas I knocked on all of these doors and advised them when bin collection day is and I got a response. The area was cleared for three days and as you can see, once again, it's so frustrating. How can people live like this? It’s not acceptable. I really want everyone to get together to see what we can do about this.

“I think it keeps happening because there’s no enforcement. There are no cameras, there’s no one watching the roads, and obviously we don’t have enough people out and about to stand on street corners to check who is fly tipping. I have noticed it is a lack of communication. When I spoke to a couple of the residents here, they didn’t understand English so I had to use Google Translate to translate the information and that’s a huge issue. Because the council keep taking the rubbish and it reappears, you’re going to have this problem reoccurring every week. Really frustrating.”

She continued: “I grew up in this ward, it was never like this. Why is it acceptable? I don’t understand why it’s acceptable. I’ve been a councillor for 10 years. I’ve been fighting this area ever since and no one is taking any notice of this. I really want some action done.

“I think the blame is the council for collecting the rubbish for free and the council for not enforcing. Even if the warden or the council came and knocked on doors and instructed them on the rules, maybe that would deter people. If those people were enforced and fined, that would put a stop to it. But people also have a responsibility that live here. They need to take responsibility. The lady who lives here is absolutely mortified every week there’s rubbish in front of her home and it smells. How is that acceptable? This poor lady has a young family and nobody gives a…

“I keep an eye on this one street because it seems there’s no one taking responsibility. If the council come and clear this up today, it would look like that again by the afternoon. When bins are collected on bin collection day, two hours later there are bags because people know the council are going to remove it. But it needs to stop – don’t accept this. Residents need to get on board with this as well.

“I think a lot of people haven’t got the time to book in and take their rubbish. It was much easier before but now it’s more complicated. The tip opening time of 10am till 4pm is ridiculous. There was no consultation when that happened. I think it’s so not thinking about the people in the town and how they work. I think that was ill thought out.”

Councillor Ashraf says she is ‘really disappointed' with the new Reform council’s lack of action so far since taking power in May 2025.

She said: “I’m really disappointed because the portfolio holder (Councillor Nigel Stansfield) came out here, he saw what we saw and he was disgusted. I showed him around St James and we were coming up with a plan. We even decided maybe putting in cameras as a pilot scheme to catch people and see who the perpetrators are. They’ve retracted now, they’re not going to do that, and that is a real big frustration because I really thought we would get somewhere with this new party coming in but another disappointment.

“I was really hopeful, I thought, finally somebody is listening to me, but obviously that wasn’t the case. He came in really excited to clear up the town and we are still where we are and I’m really disappointed. I really want to work really hard for the area and I’m trying my best. Believe me, I’m really trying my best but my hands are tired. I can only do so much. I come here every week without fail and I raise this concern but it’s falling on deaf ears.”

New figures obtained by the Chronicle via a Freedom of Information request show the scale of the problem. Between 1 January 2025 and 30 September 2025, West Northamptonshire Council received 19,094 fly-tipping reports. However, the number of enforcement actions was extremely low: just 4 fines, 23 Community Protection Warning letters, and 1 prosecution.

The numbers suggest the council has little control over fly-tipping, raising questions over the effectiveness of Kingdom enforcement, which the council pays to issue fines for littering. Many have criticised Kingdom for failing to tackle fly-tipping.

West Northamptonshire Council was approached for comment in response to councillor Ashraf, the FOI figures, why enforcement actions are so low and whether the Kingdom scheme is working.

In response, a WNC spokesman said: “West Northamptonshire Council takes fly-tipping very seriously and is committed to tackling this issue. We’ve recently changed the way we deal with fly-tips in Northampton, which is helping us improve collection timescales. The majority of fly-tips on council-managed land are now cleared within two to three days. It’s important to note that fly-tips on private land remain the responsibility of the landowner.

“Many of the incidents we record involve domestic waste being left out too early or too late for collection. We are carrying out additional communications in the worst-affected areas to remind residents of their collection arrangements and encourage responsible disposal. Businesses have responsibility for disposing of their own waste through separate arrangements.

“DEFRA’s national statistics show that West Northamptonshire reports a high number of ‘single incident’ fly-tips, which may indicate that other councils do not include these in their figures. These same statistics also confirm that West Northants has good enforcement rates compared with other areas.

“We investigate fly-tips wherever possible to identify those responsible, and we encourage residents to provide witness evidence. While CCTV can help, it does not always provide sufficient evidence for enforcement unless we can clearly identify individuals, vehicle registration numbers, or addresses.”

Cllr Nigel Stansfield, Cabinet Member for Environment, Recycling and Waste, said: “West Northamptonshire Council is not unique in the fly-tipping challenges it has; it’s an issue councils across the UK struggle with.

“As a result of regular reporting, surely nobody is under the impression that this is a reasonable thing to do. Yet our teams do all they can to educate people in the worst-hit areas, and enforce where they can gather sufficient evidence.

“Everyone needs to play their part by taking their rubbish to waste and recycling centres, arranging lawful disposal of bulky items, and making sure waste is put out at the correct time — not far too early or too late.

“We can’t be everywhere, so we need people to be our eyes and ears. By working together, we can reduce fly-tipping and keep our communities clean.”