“This is supposed to be a public road with vehicular access, but it’s just been neglected”
Residents of Belroyal Avenue in Broomhill Bristol, Friday 18 July 2025 who are up in arms with excessive fly tipping (including a boat) in the lane behind their homes(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
People living in a road in South Bristol say an access lane that serves their back gardens and garages is now impassable – because of years of council inaction over regular reports of flytipping. The residents of the road in the Broomhill area of Brislington say Bristol City Council has neglected the lane, let it become too overgrown and people have dumped everything from logs to boats, blocking up their access.
They said that, as well as the issues with rubbish being dumped and access being blocked, they fear a fire could start and spread to threaten their homes – after someone set a dumped sofa on fire and it spread across a nearby field earlier this month.
Belroyal Avenue is a U-shaped road with two entrances off Broomhill Road in BS4 that was built in the 1950s as part of the wider council housebuilding development. Around the back of the mini-estate is Belroyal Lane, which circles the back of the crescent, and is supposed to allow vehicular access to the back gardens and garages behind the homes.
But over the years, the area that backs on to Broomhill Infants School, and the part of the lane on the south side of the crescent has become overgrown, and a dumping ground for waste.
“There are people with caravans in their back yards, and people used to have cars in their garages, but it’s so blocked up now there’s no way they will be able to get their caravans out,” said one resident, who declined to be named.
Huge piles of woodchippings have been dumped on Belroyal Lane, blocking vehicle access to the back of the gardens and garages for residents of Belroyal Avenue in Broomhill.(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
“People can’t reach their back gardens anymore, at least not with a vehicle, which is what that lane was originally supposed to be for. It’s got worse gradually over time, and a lot worse in the last year or so.
“Someone just comes along and dumps wood chippings, logs, trees all over it, and we get all sorts of other stuff too. Someone has even dumped a boat there,” she added.
READ MORE: Wildfire blaze that threatened Bristol homes started deliberatelyREAD MORE: Fly-tipping blighting parks, country lanes and housing estates as ‘law change needed’
A group of residents told Bristol Live they have been reporting the issues to the police and Bristol City Council, and once or twice, a council worker has come to clear some of the dumped material at the entrance to the lane, but it is quickly replaced with more fly-tipped junk.
“The other thing is they’ve let it get so overgrown in places that it’s unusable. This is supposed to be a public road with vehicular access, but it’s just been neglected. We’re worried about what could be dumped there, and whether it’s a safety hazard for our homes and there’s an infants school on the other side,” she added.
In mid-July, firefighters rushed to the scene of a blaze late one Saturday evening, on what was then the hottest day of the year. Someone had set fire to a dumped sofa on the other side of the hedge from the lane, in the first field that makes up the Brislington Meadows greenfield area.
Residents of Belroyal Avenue in Broomhill Bristol, Friday 18 July 2025 who are up in arms with excessive fly tipping (including a boat) in the lane behind their homes(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
After weeks of dry, hot conditions, the fire jumped to the parched grass, with flames taking hold on a wide area which threatened to spread towards the blocked up lane and their gardens.
Bristol Live asked Bristol City Council about the issue, and what the council was doing about it on Monday, July 21 and a response is still awaited.