Lichfield road blocked by huge pile of illegally dumped waste

Councillor Phil Whitehouse, the council’s cabinet member in charge of waste, said he was “completely shocked”.

“The scale of it is absolutely unbelievable. I’m flabbergasted, to be honest with you. I’m almost lost for words.”

He said those responsible needed to be held to account and it appeared to have been a calculated operation.

“Clearly there are people out there [who are] very imaginative in how they get rid of their rubbish and we’re going to do all we possibly can to clamp down on that.”

The council will investigate and has sent vehicles and staff to deal with the issue he said, but warned it would take “probably many, many hours – if not days – of work,” to clear.

“Everyone will pull together to try to get the road open as quickly as possible.”