Flytipping heads the list of gripes made to councils

Fly-tipping is the number one reason people complain to a council in Wales. That’s according to analysis of data from FixMyStreet, a website that lets residents easily lodge complaints about issues that need attention from their council.

The Western Mail gathered the past year’s worth of requests from the service to find out which issues generate the most complaints

from residents. Of the 7,747 complaints logged in the past year, nearly one in five related to fly-tipping.

One Newport resident wrote: “Rubbish building once again at this fly-tipping hotspot at the corner of Corporation Rd and Halstead St, with no end in sight of it being nipped in the bud because of the #APATHY of Newport Council or Newport City Homes investigating the culprits. #ACTNOW.”

Potholes were the second biggest concern in Wales, attracting nearly one in six of the most recent complaints.

One concerned Cardiff resident wrote: “There has been for a very long time a multitude of potholes at this junction, avoiding these potholes/sink holes can be very dangerous, as could crash into concrete islands in the middle.

“These need to be repaired asap, before someone gets injured or killed.”

Overall Welsh councils weren’t very responsive, with three quarters of complaints still marked as open at the time of writing.

The third biggest issue for residents was street lighting.

One complaint read: “Lights on in daylight hours waste money and make the place look uncared for and badly run.”

The fourth most complained about issue was the state of the roads, the fifth was the state of the pavements and the sixth was rubbish (refuse and recycling).

There were 115 complaints about abandoned vehicles, 66 about graffiti, and 178 about dog mess over the last year.