Boxing club spends reserves to clear fly-tipping

A boxing club which had more than two tonnes of waste dumped at its site recently has had to use some of its cash reserves for its removal, leaders say.

Bags full of industrial waste, bicycles and even children's toys were fly-tipped at the Amalgamated Boxing Club in St Martins two months ago - the second such incident in the past 18 months.

Fly-tipping is the illegal dumping of household, commercial, or industrial waste on public or private land.

Club bosses said it was "a real shame" to have to use money it had earmarked for other purposes.

If waste is left on private land, the responsibility and costs fall on to the owner unless there is evidence of a perpetrator committing the crime.

Club trainer Liam Doherty said it had been hoped the money spent on clearing up could have been used to help renovate the club building.

He did not disclose how much it had cost to remove the waste, but said: "We are a charity... most of our coaches do not receive any pay at all and they are giving their time and often their money to keep this going.

"So it is a real shame when we have to draw from that charity pot to get rid of fly-tipping that people have gone to great lengths to put outside our club."

Guernsey usually saw one incident of fly-tipping every week, which could range from a bin bag to furniture being dumped, said Guernsey Waste.

In 2022, there were 18 reports of general refuse bags being fly-tipped and 41 letters were issued with some including an invoice for clean up costs, officials said.

Guernsey Waste said fly-tipping incidents represent the density of the population living in the parish, St Peter Port has the highest population and amount of instances.

It added it was not a big issue on island compared to the UK.

Operations manager Sarah Robinson said: "Unfortunately, a lot of such waste can be brought to the Household Waste and Recycling Centre, some of those items free of charge.

"So it is really disappointing because someone has got that item to the location they fly-tipped it in, when they could have easily brought it to the centre."

Waste staff urged people to report fly-tipping incidents in case anything could be done by officials and to monitor if there had been any trends.

Follow BBC Guernsey on X (formerly Twitter), external and Facebook, external. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk, external.