London agency branch fined for dumping rubbish in street

An estate agency has been ordered to pay a £400 fine after dumping a load of rubbish in a London street.

Wandsworth council alleges that staff at Barnard Marcus decided to leave a big pile of office waste next to a street litter bin near their offices in Streatham. 

The branch had just taken delivery of new computers and other IT equipment and left cardboard boxes and packaging on the pavement, along with bin liners and numerous other items of office waste.

The mess was discovered by council ‘litter busters’ who found documents linking the flytip to the nearby branch.

“Quite why they thought it was acceptable to simply dump all their rubbish on the pavement for someone else to clear away frankly escapes me” says a council spokesman. 

The council adds that the local branch of Barnard Marcus - which is part of Sequence - will now be facing further investigation to establish if it is complying with its responsibilities on the removal of office waste.

A statement to EAT from Barnard Marcus yesterday evening said: “The Barnard Marcus Streatham branch accepts full responsibility for this and apologises to both local residents and Wandsworth Council. The branch confirms that the majority of the waste was theirs but this was not deliberate fly tipping. A member of staff had assumed that the refuse would be collected in the usual manner on a Wednesday evening but had not taken into account the amount of rubbish that can be collected. This was a genuine mistake.”