Coventry City Council says it is “seeking to prosecute” the perpetrators of one of the city’s worst cases of illegal waste-dumping.

But it says it is proving “difficult” to catch those behind the incident in which oil containers were offloaded in a quiet rural lane in Corley, forcing it to be closed.

The authority has urged the public to come forward and report fly-tipping including any information on alleged offenders.

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Cllr John McNicholas, the Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Cohesion, told the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee: “We are seeking to prosecute. We’ve looked into things like the bar codes [on the oil containers], but it’s going to be very difficult to actually deal with that.

“But, again, it’s back to help from the local communities, because they know the spots where these things are being dumped. We need them to tell us, and we will deal with it in the best way that we possibly can.

“Ultimately, we are going to need to have more officers. I’m progressing that now to ensure that we can respond to these fly-tipping areas as best we can.”

The incident in Hollyfast Lane in July saw oil leak all over the road. Cllr McNicholas (Lab, Lower Stoke ) said around 75-100 containers in total were dumped at the site, a notorious location for fly-tipping.

He explained the council closed the road immediately for a clean-up operation that involved resurfacing the carriageway, which was all completed within a couple of days.

At the time of the incident, Cllr McNicholas said it was one of the worst fly-tipping cases seen in the city and amounted to “industrial pollution.” He said the council was working with the Environment Agency and needed to find a long term solution.

Cllr John McNicholas has named ‘Cleaner Neighbourhoods and Visible Local Enforcement’ as one of his priorities for the year.

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A report considered by the scrutiny committee said: “Residents should see a more visible enforcement presence, better focus on hotspot locations, CCTV solutions and clearer accountability for local environmental issues.”

It explained that this priority brings together recent investment, visible enforcement and a stronger focus on fly-tipping and environmental crime, stating that: “The core message for Scrutiny is that the council is moving from reactive response alone to a more visible, prevention-led and intelligence-led approach, with proportionate CCTV solutions including V-Ceptor solar CCTV towers and pods being explored to strengthen evidence in fly-tipping cases.”

However, councillors pointed out that fly-tipping in Coventry has gone up by 40 per cent from pre-Covid levels and just three per cent of cases result in enforcement or prosecution.

The council suggested that the increase in fly-tipping was down to more people reporting it, but Reform says it is not convinced this is the reason and has asked for more detailed analysis of the statistics.

Cllr Mattie Heaven (Cons, Wainbody) said the authority had not stepped up its fight against fly-tipping enforcement over the past year, but appeared to have simply gathered more data.

She said: “Looking at the report, last year we set out to be more transparent on fly-tipping and then now we have got to get more data for 2027 so we have not really moved forward from an enforcement aspect, from last year to this year.

“All we have done is just counted more numbers for fly-tipping so maybe we need to review the whole enforcement.”

Anyone with information on the Hollyfast Lane incident or other fly-tipping can report it on the Coventry City Council website at coventry.gov.uk/flytipping or call 08085 834333.