00:01As the Garden of England, we're spoilt for choice for rolling hills, but for some, those green spaces are an
00:07opportunity to save some cash.
00:09Fly tipping cases across the country are on the increase, with Kent seeing over 100,000 fly tips in the
00:16past year.
00:17Not only are the fly tips an unsightly addition to the countryside, the cost of removing dumped waste is footed
00:23by the landowner.
00:24It seems to happen reasonably frequently. You can see the one behind, that's actually on the road, so that's a
00:32council issue, but it's on a very dangerous bend.
00:36It's a big problem for us if it gets put into one of our fields or one of our gateways,
00:40at which stage we're responsible for clearing it up.
00:43We've had two in the last week, and I would say it's probably in this area a weekly or a
00:51fortnightly issue.
00:52How much would this cost if it ended up in your land?
00:54Oh, if it ended up on our land, I would say there's probably at least two big skips worth, maybe
01:01a little bit more, so £800 to £1,000.
01:04Just around the corner, there's another waste dump, which will also be at cost to the council to remove.
01:10Now, aside from all this trash talk, there's also long-term environmental issues at play.
01:16There's been over 1,200 incidents of fly tipping in Sevenoaks.
01:20212 of those were in agricultural or private land.
01:24Here in Squerry's farm, there's over 2,500 acres of luscious greenery, but just off the M25, it's become a
01:31hotspot for fly tippers.
01:33So there's varying different sort of impacts from fly tipping.
01:36Firstly, the one we all think about most is money.
01:39On average, something like this, probably smaller than this, costs about £1,000 each time to take away legally.
01:46And this is obviously happening on a daily, on a weekly basis across people's farms.
01:50So it costs an awful, awful lot of money.
01:51But then there's the environmental and the wildlife impact.
01:54Anything in there that is polluting can leach into the soil and animals, wildlife, birds eat it and horrible things
02:01happen.
02:02So really, there are so many impacts that something relatively small can cause.
02:06We've got to see the police and local government take this more seriously.
02:09No one should be able to do this and get away with it.
02:11So fundamentally, if you are caught doing it, you should be fined an awful lot of money.
02:15While the government say they're clamping down on so-called waste cowboys, adding that they're investing in technology and boosting
02:22Environment Agency funding to put more waste crime officers on the ground,
02:26farmers like John just hope this effort won't prove a waste of time.
02:30Chloe Brewster for KMTV in Sevenoaks.
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