Councillor demands urgent action over fly-tipping, branding area in town as ‘rubbish tip for Northampton’

The ward member has asked for CCTV coverage and high visibility wardens in hotspots in Semilong

Nadia Lincoln Local Democracy Reporter | Wednesday 29th July 2026 5:13pm

A councillor has demanded urgent action from the council including CCTV to monitor fly-tipping hotspots in her ward, saying the area has become “a rubbish tip for Northampton”.

Discarded mattresses, piles of black bin bags and other unwanted items of furniture were dumped along the streets in the Semilong area earlier this week.

Kingsley and Semilong councillor Farzana Aldridge (Lib Dem) has said the area is at a crisis point and needs concentrated action from the local authority to target what she has said is a result of criminals who are being paid to remove household rubbish from elsewhere and simply dump it on the roadside.

“Rotten food is attracting flies and vermin and pedestrians are faced with walking on roads rather than walking on pavements,” she said, “Access for people with disabilities, mobility issues or those with prams is blocked.

“This is worse than I’ve ever seen it. I’m horrified because we have come to a point where we’re genuinely at crisis.

“This level of fly-tipping is not about a very few local residents putting their rubbish out when they should not and a small number of anti-social and selfish tenants and landlords.

“There’s no way in which 10 mattresses dumped across two roads are actually from local residents. This is planned criminal activity and needs to be dealt with firmly.”

She said she believed the area was being targeted due to there being several fly-tipping hotspots which are not overlooked and it becoming a “known area” for illegal dumping.

However, the issue of fly-tipping in the area is not a new phenomenon and has been plaguing residents in the area for years. In 2024, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by the LDRS found that Semilong Road was the worst street for fly-tipping in the town, receiving 672 fly-tipping reports from residents over a 12 month period – meaning an illegal waste dumping incident was reported more than once a day on average.

Cllr Aldridge told the LDRS that residents are “angry and distraught” at their environment and the constant rubbish piles.

“They’ve either given up, or they’ve got real issues around their mental health and wellbeing. A couple of residents have said they just don’t want to live here anymore and that’s tragic because they are people who care about their environment.

“We want CCTV and we need high visibility wardens walking about and also looking for evidence of the culprits.

“This matter is now urgent. It is simply not acceptable that any resident in West Northamptonshire should be experiencing such degradation and neglect.”

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) is responsible for the removal of fly-tips in the area. It is alerted of incidents through residents’ reports on the WNC App and the council website.

The LDRS has contacted them for comment.

The authority has the power to issue fixed penalty notices of up to £1,000 for fly-tipping, and to seize vehicles which have been used in the act. In the most serious cases this can result in a sentence of up to five years imprisonment and an unlimited fine given by a court.

In January this year, WNC announced that it would be trialling the use of an AI CCTV camera tower throughout 2026, with it moving across various hotspot locations in West Northants.

Last month, Crimestoppers launched a new campaign in Semilong to raise awareness of its anonymous reporting service and to encourage residents to speak up about crime affecting their community, including drug-related activity and environmental crime.

People can report litter, street cleaning and grounds maintenance issues on the council’s website here and can apply to WNC’s bulky waste collection service to get rid of large household items.

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