FED-UP of the fly-tipping that blights Lye - a town trader has vowed to take matters into his own hands and has organised a large-scale community clean up of the streets.

Gary Farmer, who runs Poshkutz dog grooming parlour in the High Street, is inviting community spirited residents and traders to join him and a team of around 30 volunteers to help spruce up the streets of the town which have become a magnet for fly-tipped rubbish and litter.

The team will be meeting at 11am outside Christ Church in Lye High Street this Sunday (August 9).

Mr Farmer said Dudley Council's street cleaning team have donated black bin bags and brooms to help and he has also received a donation of high-vis vests from a kind-hearted member of the public.

The ambitious plan to start the much-longed for clean-up comes after Mr Farmer live streamed a video on Facebook in which he claimed he had been threatened with an enforcement notice for gathering some of the rubbish into one place to be taken away.

He told viewers on the social media site that it has been "a constant battle everyday" to try to keep Lye tidy as he pointed out an old mattress strewn under bushes that he said had been overlooked by street cleaners.

Dudley News:

Mr Farmer, pictured, said: "I'm just trying to do good. I want to keep Lye clean and tidy. Businesses in the High Street are fed-up of it."

Councillor Karen Shakespeare, Dudley Council's cabinet member for environmental, highways and street services, has since said: "There was never an intention to prosecute Mr Farmer once the circumstances of what he was trying to do had been explained."

She added: "We do take fly-tipping extremely seriously and sympathise with traders like Mr Farmer. He is understandably also very frustrated with the perpetrators, who show a complete disregard for the environment."

Cllr Shakespeare said the council would be installing six CCTV cameras in and around Lye High Street which are expected to be "up and operational in the next couple of months" and she added: "If we catch those responsible we will not hesitate to prosecute them, with fines of up to £50,000 payable if the case goes through the courts.”

Lye councillor Mohammed Hanif has backed calls for cameras in Lye to help put a stop to fly-tipping which he said was costing the council thousands of pounds to clean up.

He said: "I receive daily calls and emails from the local community and traders in Lye complaining of fly-tipping and other rubbish being dumped on their doorstep.

"They are fed up and angry with putting up with rubbish either ferried in or just dumped by many of the properties above the shops in the town. Whether it's sofas, mattresses or bagged up rubbish - it's simply dumped on the pavements in the High Street, adjoining streets and not forgetting the car parks, with people knowing well that the street cleansing team will remove it.

Dudley News:

"It’s now actually beyond a joke in the area, it is creating tensions and leading to shoppers staying away."

Mr Farmer, who used to run a cleaning company, has been working with cllr Hanif over the last few weeks to get rubbish removed and he said this Sunday's clean up operation would not be a one off. He plans to have volunteers out every Sunday (weather permitting) and he has also enlisted help to keep the streets tidy on a daily basis.

He told the News: "We want people to drive down Lye High Street and say it looks really clean."