CONSERVATIONISTS in Heaton are demanding a heap of flytipped rubbish including asbestos and a tractor wheel is moved from its woodland.

The dumped pile, which spills over a broken-down drystone wall, has been in situ for more than two years and is now being investigated by Bradford Council’s environmental health team.

Earlier this month, Heaton Woods Trust was celebrating a temporary reprieve after an application to build new homes in Heaton ran out of time.

Members had been at loggerheads with developer Asghar Choudhary for six years since he was granted outline planning permission to build 27 homes at Ashwell Farm – which included a strip of land the Woods Trust said belonged to them.

But when Mr Choudhary was granted permission, with conditions attached, to go ahead with the development, the council made it clear the contested strip of land had been removed from the application.

Now Heaton Woods Trust claims the tractor wheel and building waste it wants moving has come over on to its land from Mr Choudhary’s side.

There was no comment from Mr Choudhary when the T&A called his home this week. But in a letter sent to the Trust by Mr Choudhary, and seen by the Telegraph & Argus, he emphatically denies the allegation of contamination and damage.

In the letter to the Trust dated July 8, Mr Choudhary did offer to “cede” the land in question to Heaton Woods Trustees, providing the two parties could come to “an amicable arrangement with a view to improving and maintaining it by mutually beneficial understanding and agreement.”

John Tempest, from the Trust, said he had been advised two years go, when he first took the flytipping complaint to the Council, to put the matter on hold to see if Mr Choudhary’s building project progressed.

He said officials told him Mr Choudhary would have to deal with the rubbish as a condition before any building work started.

He said: “The materials all come from an old workshop on the other side of the stone wall which included an asbestos roof on concrete block walls. As the material is inert there is no incentive for the Trust to pay for its removal. We have complained to the Council’s environmental team hoping for enforcement.”

Environmental Health Services and Enforcement Manager Amjad Ishaq said: “We’re going up to the site this week to investigate the situation and take any necessary action.”