A short distance down the road is a legitimate waste contractor’s premises.<\/p>\n
Underwood’s Recycling deals with materials such as sand, stone and demolition rubble, which are processed into new products and resold.<\/p>\n
Operator Joseph Underwood says it is frustrating for authorised businesses to see criminals get away with dumping \u2013 and setting up their illicit operations so “efficiently”.<\/p>\n
“We try to follow the rules as much as we possibly can, and it’s quite annoying to see that people are actually getting away with it, and we’re following these strict guidelines and rules by the book,” he says.<\/p>\n
“It is in a bit of a hotspot place for nobody to actually know what’s been going on.”<\/p>\n
Councillor Muhammad Haseeb Khan says “it was a professional job done in a professional manner”, which is why the criminals were not stopped or action taken sooner.<\/p>\n
“There are two community centres on Midland Road and there’s Valley Parade and it’s a residential area, so it’s not a site that’s in the middle of nowhere. <\/p>\n
“It’s affected the community centres and the residents throughout the summer holidays,” he adds.<\/p>\n
But Underwood says he can understand how it’s happened \u2013 and may continue to happen if things don’t improve.<\/p>\n
“It’s just household waste, which I feel like people are struggling at the minute to get rid of. <\/p>\n
“In this area there are a lot of tips that have closed, so I’m guessing that people are getting desperate and that’s why they turn to these illegal waste services,” he says.<\/p>\n
“There are not many options for normal people and the tips are getting more strict.”<\/p>\n
Ironically, between the illegal dump and Underwood’s Recycling is Midland Road Household Waste and Recycling Centre \u2013 a council-run tip.<\/p>\n
The queues are often long, says Underwood.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes on a Saturday the roads are genuinely blocked each way because of the queues.”<\/p>\n
Across Bradford several council tips closed in 2024 – Ford Hill in Queensbury, Golden Butts in Ilkley and Sugden End in Cross Roads. At the time the Labour-run council said this would save about \u00a31m a year.<\/p>\n
These recycling centres are also subject to rules and regulations. Residents using them must have a permit, and commercial waste is not accepted. Only two tips, Bowling Back Lane and Keighley, allow larger vehicles such as campervans.<\/p>\n
Fridges and freezers are not currently accepted due to nationwide shortage of specialist processing facilities.<\/p>\n
The council runs separate disposal facilities for chargeable items and commercial waste, which must be weighed and paid for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A short distance down the road is a legitimate waste contractor’s premises. Underwood’s Recycling deals with materials such…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-752261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}