A woman from Westbury-on-Trym in Bristol has been ordered to pay a total of \u00a3368 in fines and costs after South Gloucestershire Council prosecuted her following the discovery of fly-tipped household waste.<\/p>\n
Claire Dolman, 51, of Merlin Close, Westbury-on-Trym appeared at Bristol Magistrates Court on 16 February. She pleaded guilty to failing in her duty of care for waste and was handed a \u00a3120 fine, ordered to pay costs of \u00a3200 and a victim surcharge of \u00a348, making a total of \u00a3368.<\/p>\n
The court heard that a fly-tip was discovered in a hedgerow at Webbs Heath, Siston Common on 18 August 2025. Council officers attended and found bags of household waste, furniture, toys, packaging, boxes, plastics and broken gardening machinery, along with correspondence in the name of Claire Dolman.<\/p>\n
The council\u2019s environmental enforcement investigators interviewed Dolman under caution at her home address on Thursday 11 September. During the interview, Dolman stated she had paid \u00a3150 to a cold caller offering waste clearance services, to remove what she described as half a Transit van sized amount of waste from her driveway. She admitted to failing in her householder duty of care by not checking that she was handing her waste over to a licenced waste carrier and not taking steps to obtain a receipt, nor record any details of the waste carrier and their vehicle. At the conclusion of the interview Dolman was advised that she was being reported for summons for the offence of failing in her householder waste duty of care.<\/p>\n
Dolman was originally summonsed to appear before Bristol Magistrates Courts on 8 December 2025 but failed to attend and the case was adjourned to 2 February 2026. She also failed to appear on that date, so the Court issued a warrant for her arrest.<\/p>\n
Dolman was detained by Police on 13 February 2026 and appeared before Bristol Magistrates on Monday 16 February where she pleaded guilty to failing in her duty of care.<\/p>\n
Councillor Sean Rhodes, cabinet member responsible for environmental enforcement at South Gloucestershire Council, said: \u201cFly-tipping is a serious environmental crime that can have a negative impact on communities, can often be hazardous, and costs the council time and money to clear. We all have a duty to dispose of our waste responsibly and that includes when dealing with third party waste collectors.<\/p>\n
\u201cResidents are advised to be wary of cold callers and businesses or people advertising waste clearances on social media sites such as Facebook. There are a number of legitimate options for waste removal, including the council\u2019s large household waste collection service. If you hire a third-party to dispose of your waste, always ask for a copy of the company\u2019s waste carrier registration certificate, make a note of their details and ask where the waste is being taken.<\/p>\n
\u201cProsecutions like these protect our environment and create cleaner and safer places for our communities. These are key priorities of the Liberal Democrat\/ Labour partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n
Residents and businesses are advised to only give their rubbish to an Environment Agency registered waste carrier.<\/p>\n
You can carry out these simple steps to make sure your waste is disposed of legally:<\/p>\n
Household waste can be taken to the council\u2019s Sort It recycling centres where it can be disposed of at no cost www.southglos.gov.uk\/sortitcentres<\/a><\/p>\n Residents who see illegal fly-tipping are encouraged to report it by contacting the council\u2019s StreetCare helpdesk on 01454 868000, emailing streetcare@southglos.gov.uk<\/a> or visiting www.southglos.gov.uk\/flytipping<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A woman from Westbury-on-Trym in Bristol has been ordered to pay a total of \u00a3368 in fines and costs after South Gloucestershire Council prosecuted her following the discovery of fly-tipped household waste. Claire Dolman, 51, of Merlin Close, Westbury-on-Trym appeared at Bristol Magistrates Court on 16 February. She pleaded guilty to failing in her duty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[561],"tags":[1311,961],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26109,"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26106\/revisions\/26109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.southglos.gov.uk\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}