Rubbish used to ford low river near Market Harborough

A local walker spotted the new “blot on the landscape” this week, and emailed the Harborough Mail.

“The stones and hard core have been there about two years, just left by the side of the river” he said.

“But now someone’s just tipped it right across the river. The water is low anyway – in 15 years I’ve never seen it as low as it is now – and now this blockage is making it hard for the river to make its way.

“The hard core has been a blot on the landscape for the best part of two years, and no one’s done anything about it.

“Now it’s all been tipped into the river and it’s more environmental vandalism.”

The new blockage, spotted on Monday, is on the River Welland about midway between Market Harborough and Lubenham.

The walker, who asked not to be named, said “it’s a lovely spot in the middle of fields, with ponies in the field, but it’s been spoilt by this fly-tipping.

“It seems ridiculous that no one can do anything about it.”

The Mail has contacted the East Midlands region of the Environment Agency, which is responsible for maintaining England’s rivers, and sent them the photograph shown above.

A spokesman for the agency said this week: “We’ve passed all the information from the Mail onto our incident report system.

“We can’t have people just blocking the river in this way – it’s unsightly apart from anything else.

“There are additional concerns too – not so much in terms of fish wellbeing, but the blockage could be a concern from a flood risk perspective.

“The blockage looks quite low at the moment, but it certainly merits further investigation.”