Status unknown
Rat populations increasing behind shops
Reported in the Flytipping category anonymously at 16:42, Sun 10 January 2016
Sent to Harrow Borough Council 2 minutes later. FixMyStreet ref: 742732.
There is a slum like quantity of rubbish behind the shops at the top of cavendish avenue. there are rats and foxes there. there are also fridges, shop storage units and huge quantities of rubbish building up
Updates
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You should contact the environmental health department directly. FMS does not deal with environmental health enforcement issues, and reporting the problem as fly tipping is likely to get the report closed on the basis that the landowner, rather than the council, is responsible for clearing the tip.
You want to suggest to them that they need to take action under section 4 of the Prevention of Damage by Pest Act 1949,
They will probably need your postal address, as well as your name, before taking action.
It may be better to escalate to the local councillors now, as the situation you describe is pretty much the normal case for service roads behind shops but councils rarely take enforcement action.
The other thing you could do is to explain to the shopkeepers why they are not getting your custom.
Looking at the location, it is close to underground lines. Railway lines always have rat problems associated with them (deep stations have mice, instead). (That information comes from the LUL contractor H&S briefing).
One other thing to note, in my limited experience of using FMS to make fly tipping reports to Harrow, I find they can take about a week to read the report, which they probably receive by email. You will almost certainly get through quicker if you use Harrow's own web site. You will need to get the right category, as fly tipping reports may go direct to the waste contractor who will reject those on private land.
In any case, any enforcement action is likely to take one to two months, if the landowner doesn't cooperate, and I'd be surprised if anything happened in less than one to weeks if they cooperate fully.
PS foxes are not legally vermin, so councils have no duties in relation to them. The general advice is that there is no effective way of controlling fox numbers, as they will rapidly recolonise after any culling.
Posted anonymously at 23:56, Sun 10 January 2016
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