Country Mouse on litter

Fly-tipping is getting out of hand and any initiatives by the local councils to reduce rubbish collections further and possibly charge for it by weight will see it get worse, says Mark Hedges

Country mouse, Country Life magazine
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The local estate agents describe our village as one of the prettiest in north Hampshire. It has a delightful little flint church and an extraordinary display of snowdrops throughout the village each spring. Now the bluebells are coming out and the cow parsley is shooting up in the verges. It should be faultless, but many people seem determined to spoil it.

My eldest son is paid a few pounds to pick up litter in the village each week. It s extra-ordinary how much he finds. It s not just passers-by throwing stuff out of the car. Somebody throws a bottle of gin and tonic into the hedge at the top of the hill every day. There are always seven to pick up. Last weekend, there was a sofa why somebody took the trouble to drive it to the entrance of the farmer s field to dump rather than take it to the tip is beyond me, but they did.

Fly tipping is getting out of hand. I fear that, across the country, county-council decisions to pick up rubbish less frequently and possibly charge for it by weight will see fly tipping get a lot worse. We all need to fight to tighten up on this scourge of the countryside.

Country Life

Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.