A local litter-picking group attacked Monmouthshire County Council over fly-tipped rubbish its volunteers reported to the council early last month.

Volunteers from Llangattock Litter Pickers said they reported a pile of fly-tipped kitchen units and other debris on Hafod Road on December 12.

After returning to the spot this week, members of the group found the eyesore still in place, despite reporting the mess to the council on the same day.

Monmouthshire County Council has a statutory obligation to remove reported fly-tips within five days.

Writing on Twitter, the group tweeted MCC, saying, “So disappointing whilst litter picking on the Hafod Road today a fly tip reported to you @MonmouthshireCC on 12/12/17 remains in situ. What happened to removal of such in the statutory five days?”

Michael Butterfield, a member of the 80-strong group, said, “We took over that patch recently. It was so full of fly-tipping, some people said ‘why bother?’ It was like Hell, reincarnated because there was so much rubbish tipped up there.

“We have cleared that area now, so we are really in maintenance mode. We reported that incident over a month ago, and Monmouthshire County Council still hasn’t removed it, despite their statutory duty to sort it out. ??“There’s another three fly-tips up on that area. We are going to remove the others ourselves. I have to be honest, It did slightly irritate as I said ‘I bet that tip is still there’ to a colleague as we made our way up there. And, lo and behold, it was.

“We understand times are hard with austerity, and we are doing our best, but the council has to act on our reports.”

An MCC spokesman said, “We received notification of this fly-tipping on December 12 via our My Monmouthshire app and we noted that the land in question was privately-owned and therefore not the responsibility of the council to remove – we don’t own the verge on this stretch of road, only the surfaced highway. The responsibility for removing this rubbish rests with the landowner.

“The complainant should have received an email explaining this situation but it appears that this may not have been the case. Possibly, it may have been directed to his junk mail folder.

“We apologise if he didn’t receive our message although the complainant would have been able to track his service request on our My Monmouthshire app.

“We have since contacted the complainant to apologise and inform him that the responsibility for removing this rubbish rests with the landowner.”