THE origin of a fly-tip  outside the gates of a rural Thurrock Scout campsite has been tracked back by Thurrock Nub News, who confronted the couple whose waste was dumped overnight between 8.30pm yesterday (Tuesday, 28 March) and this morning.

The unsightly tip on Church Lane, West Tilbury was discovered by scout leaders today. It contained a significant number of bags of material including bottles, domestic rubbish, carpet, old pictures, tyres, electrical items, cabling and other detritus.

Thurrock District scouts chair Geoff Harris was among those who attended the campsite today to discover the rubble – which somewhat bizarrely had a number of small adhesive posters from Thurrock Council's fly-tipping team on it.

When the council's environmental team at the town hall in Grays were contacted, no one appeared to know how the stickers had got there and there was no record of the tip logged, according to a member of the council environmental team.

Scout leaders contacted Thurrock Nub News editor Neil Speight, who attended the scene  and delved into the morass of rubbish to uncover material that contained several names of people all listed at living at an address in Linford.

East Tilbury ward Cllr Fraser Massey also attended the campsite after watching Nub News Facebook film live from the scene.

Thurrock Council stickers were placed on the rubbish!

Together Cllr Massey and Mr Speight visited the home in Linford which is being renovated by its owner Peter Felice, a building services contractor who lives in Basildon. He confirmed that the rubbish, which contained pictures and mail from previous tenants including Sam Murphy and Sonia Samuel, items we described on the tip had originated from his property.

Nub News must confirm that Ms Samuels and Mr Murphy are not deemed to be connected with the disposal of their former materials in this illegal manner.

However, Mr Felice said he had paid, yesterday, £250 for two men to take away the assortment of rubbish from his property in two loads.

He confirmed he had not checked any of the credentials about the people who took the rubbish away.

And he denied he was responsible for the fly-tip, saying: "I would never do that, I have pass so I can take rubbish to the Linford tip, who I wouldn't need to dump.

Some of the material that led to speedy identification of the source of the rubbish.

Mr Felice has passed a contact number to Cllr Massey which will be forwarded, with all the other information, to Thurrock Council's enforcement and investigation team.

Thurrock Scouts are waiting 24 hours for a council decision on who should dispose of the rubbish and are prepared to undertake it at their expense, though Mr Harris pointed out: "It seems grossly unfair that we are going to have to spend some of our hard-earned funds on paying for waste to be taken away and disposed of properly. That's money that could be used on helping nurture young people in the borough."

Mr Speight concluded: "I was pleased to be able to act and find the source of this rubbish. I hate fly-tipping with a passion, it's an awful thing and I hope that myself and Cllr Massey may have contributed in some small way to tracking down the offenders.

"I do have to ask what the council did this morning, when it stopped and put stickers on the rubbish saying 'We're Watching You'. That's hardly a pro-active thing, is it. And five minutes of simple investigative work could have got the council enforcement team to the same door that myself and Cllr Massey were soon knocking on.

"Action speaks louder than words and I sometimes wonder just what real action Thurrock Council takes to stop this sort of thing by finding the offenders and making them pay through the nose for their crime.

"If the council thinks putting stickers on fly-tips is somehow a deterrent they are even more inept than I give them discredit for!""