A MAN has been fined for dumping large household waste in his own street.

Anthony Peter Smith, 50, left the rubbish outside the communal area of a block of flats in Beechwood Croft, Sherburn-in-Elmet.

Danielle Stanley, for Selby District Council, said council enforcement officers had identified him as the person who left the items because it contained items with his address on.

Smith initially told York magistrates he had only left cardboard box that had contained window blinds for another person’s flat and he had put it next to the flats’ bins.

“I don’t think I was doing anything wrong,” he said.

“It has been a waste of time me coming here over a cardboard box that was at the side of my bin. I feel the council is just after robbing people, taking money off people.”

After he was reminded some of his post had been found in the other items left by the cardboard, he accepted he had dumped the lot.

“It wasn’t exactly fly-tipping,” he said. Smith pleaded guilty to not disposing appropriately of his household rubbish.

Magistrates fined him £40 and ordered him to pay £305.64 prosecution costs and a £30 statutory surcharge.

Ms Stanley said he had been offered the chance to avoid prosecution by paying a penalty ticket, and had declined to.