FLY-TIPPERS are shamelessly dumping large amounts of rubbish at a cemetery in Purbeck.

A mourner was faced with the sight of a heap of rusty shelving units and garden waste when she visited her mother’s grave at Upton Cemetery on Sunday.

Sally Garnham said: “Some horrible person has dumped rubbish having no regard for hearses or people wishing to visit their loved ones’ graves. It was upsetting to find this as the cemetery is always kept so beautiful. I visit there every Sunday to place fresh flowers on my mum’s grave.

“Some people are so disrespectful,” she added.

Purbeck district councillor Fred Drane, who represents Upton, said it was the second fly-tipping incident he had heard about at the cemetery.

“We used to have fly-tipping on Blandford Road North, but it stopped there after the town council took the recycling bins away. But it’s creeping into the cemetery now.

“This is the second time something like this has happened – a similar incident happened around three or four weeks ago. Fly-tipping is absolutely terrible, particularly in a place like a cemetery.”

Cllr Drane said Lytchett Minster and Upton Town Council had contacted Dorset County Council about implementing measures to tackle the problem of fly-tipping in the area.

“We suggested having a legalised patrol of volunteers, but they didn’t think that was a good idea. If we put up CCTV, I don’t think that would resolve the problem.”

As reported in the Daily Echo, fly-tipping cost Dorset taxpayers more than £170,000 last year. During 2016, local authorities across Dorset, Poole and Bournemouth received 5,930 reports of rubbish having deliberately been abandoned at the roadside, at beauty spots and public land - all at a huge cost to the public.

Over the same period, employees of the Dorset Waste Partnership dealt with 2,417 incidents, excluding Bournemouth and Poole, at an estimated cost of £130,813.

A Purbeck District Council spokesperson said they were investigating the incident at Upton Cemetery and are appealing for any witnesses to contact Environmental Health.

Cllr Drane said: “I’ve been a member of Keep Upton Tidy for several years, and we’ve stopped fly-tipping in a number of areas. When the group started, we improved the situation tremendously. We put signs up and that helped. We’ll have to concentrate on the cemetery now as it’s a very sentimental place for people.