How I was told to pay a 'DIY waste' fee by rubbish tip to throw away broken garden trellis

A pile of rubbish from a garden clear out

Gargoles can be seen to the rear (Image credit: Future / Amy Willis)

A few months ago, I helped a family member tidy up his three-bedroom ex-council house. The decor inside the terraced home hadn't been updated in decades and there was a lot of rubbish left in the garden from the previous occupants.

The house needed a clear out and lick of paint, plus a new kitchen but that was a job for another day. While he started work inside, I was tasked with sorting out the front and back garden.

The garden design was small but came complete with a traffic cone, a broken TV, an old wooden door and some bits of old furniture. Broken garden trellis would have to be unscrewed from the front walls of the house and overgrown leylandii needed chopping back where it had blocked access to the back of the house. A rather fabulous assortment of gargoyles, garden statues and gnomes also needed rehoming, a few which I must confess found their way into my own garden.

All the while, it seems, while claiming that it wouldn't cause an increase in fly-tipping. "Previous changes to our recycling centre service, such as making sites part time, have not shown an increase in illegal dumping of waste. Other councils who have introduced a similar charge for DIY type waste have not seen a significant increase in fly-tipping," it claims on Norfolk County Council's website.

Amy spent over a decade in London editing and writing for The Daily Telegraph, MailOnline, and Metro.co.uk before moving to East Anglia where she began renovating a period property in rural Suffolk. During this time she also did some TV work at ITV Anglia and CBS as well as freelancing for Yahoo, AOL, ESPN and The Mirror. When the pandemic hit she switched to full-time building work on her renovation and spent nearly two years focusing solely on that. She's taken a hands-on DIY approach to the project, knocking down walls, restoring oak beams and laying slabs with the help of family members to save costs. She has largely focused on using natural materials, such as limestone, oak and sisal carpet, to put character back into the property that was largely removed during the eighties. The project has extended into the garden too, with the cottage's exterior completely re-landscaped with a digger and a new driveway added. She has dealt with de-listing a property as well as handling land disputes and conveyancing administration.