A grandmother who left two items outside her property for a neighbour to collect was stunned to receive a £300 fine - for fly-tipping. Debra Turton was giving away her grandson's high chair and a car seat worth £200 to a nearby resident and had left them outside her property for them to collect on November 22.
But Debra, and her daughter Kerry McCulloch, were "flabbergasted" when the grandmother was hit with a fine for fly-tipping by Nottingham City Council. Because Debra, who lives in Bulwell, outside of Nottingham, has a shared driveway, she couldn't leave the items there, NottinghamshireLive reports.
Kerry, 40, said the high chair and the car seat were only left outside for a short period of time and there was no other rubbish around them - but a Nottingham City Council protection officer who was on patrol came and questioned what they were doing there. Kerry said the person who was coming to collect the items was running late because there had been a house explosion on a nearby street the same day and was delayed by police cordons in the area.
Debra was a "bit angry" after being told leaving the items there was fly-tipping and she refused to accept a fine - but one was later posted through her letterbox. Fuming Kerry, who lives in Daybrook, said despite the high value of the items, they were gifting them and not selling them.
The items were once used by her son, who is now five years old. Kerry questioned where the "humanity" was in hitting a woman in her sixties on benefits with a fine of hundreds of pounds just before Christmas.
Kerry explained: "We've got a five-year-old boy and he had a high chair that was at my mum's house. And a really top-range car seat that's worth £200.
"So my mum lives on a shared drive, so she can't put it on the drive. She's had skips when she needed to get rubbish out of the garage - there was no other rubbish, it was just two items and somebody was coming to collect them.
"We were gifting them, we weren't even selling them. The people were arriving late to collect the items.
"There'd been a house explosion on the next street, so it was all cornered off which delayed somebody coming to collect it. The lady walked past and said you can't dump your rubbish.
"My mum said 'well it's hardly rubbish, it's two items and somebody is coming to collect them'. The woman said 'well I'm going to give you a penalty'. My mum refused to take it and she was clearly a bit angry about it. And then she received a penalty through the door for fly-tipping of £300.
"And when my mum was being given the ticket, the person collecting the items had turned up and was putting them in the car. It's just like 'where is the humanity in that'.
"And who can afford £300. My mum doesn't work, she's in her 60s, she's on benefits - it's ludicrous. My mum and her husband went out and tried to explain. They were flabbergasted."
Nottingham City Council has said that Debra stated that she was "not sure" when the items were to be collected. A spokesperson for the authority said: “One of our community protection officers spotted these items outside a property in Bulwell during a patrol and knocked on the door to ask who they belonged to. Ms Turton said they were hers and had been outside the house for more than a day, adding that she thought someone ‘might’ be coming along to pick them up later but was not sure when that would be.
“We have a clear policy about items left on the street as part of a wider drive to ensure neighbourhoods and communities are clean and tidy for everyone. Ms Turton was therefore issued with a fixed-penalty notice, which she is, of course, free to appeal.”
