Rat-infested river bank owners accuse Bolton Council of trespassing

Rat-infested river bank owners accuse Bolton Council of trespassing

11:46am Friday 14th March 2014 in News By Jeremy Culley, reporter

THE owners of a rat-infested river bank besieged by fly-tippers have accused Bolton Council of trespassing on their land.

A long-running legal row between the council and 91-year-old Tom Taylor, whose Cardiff-based daughter Caroline Taylor, aged 60, owns the land, has stalled the clean-up operation.

The land, just off Croal Street, resembles a landfill site after mountains of putrid waste, bin bags, beer cans, old toys and furniture were dumped illegally.

Bolton Council is investigating the fly-tipping and hopes to make prosecutions but insists Mr Taylor is responsible for clearing up the waste.

The council uses his land to access the underside of the bridge and installed a gate into a wall in Croal Street in 2005 without informing Mr Taylor, who bought the land in 1982.

A spokesman for the council said it can use the land under section 291 of the Highways Act 1980, and that this use gives it no responsibility to clear up the waste.

Mr Taylor disputes this and claims the wording of the act which gives councils the right to access land on, over or under their own property, which the bank technically is not renders them guilty of trespass.

The council first wrote to Ms Taylor in July, 2010, and informed her of its use of the land in April 2011 .

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Rat-infested river bank owners accuse Bolton Council of trespassing