Raw meat mysteriously strewn across northern town

Piles of chicken and red meat have been discovered across Stockport’s Manchester Road Park area

Piles of raw meat have been dumped around a town leaving residents “baffled and annoyed”.

Residents of Stockport, Greater Manchester, said discarded chicken and red meat had been discovered strewn across the town.

The dumped rubbish has led to concern over the potential health risks to local wildlife and animals.

Joanna Williams, the Labour candidate for Reddish South, said she was concerned about the “strange phenomenon”, but said she believed it was an attempt to save money during the cost of living crisis.

“People are really worried about it, about whether there’s any poison in it and if it’s intended for dogs who might get sick if they eat it,” she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

“My opinion is that it’s businesses cutting costs on legitimate disposal practices during the cost of living crisis and they may be unaware that what they are doing is essentially fly-tipping even though the product might be seen as biodegradable.”

Joanna Williams has speculated the meat has been dumped in order to cut costs

Ms Williams also speculated that it was being dumped by someone with professional experience as it often looked neatly prepared and cut, but she has passed on all the information to the Reddish Police Station.

Most sightings have been concentrated around the Manchester Road Park area and the Whitehill industrial estate, with some reports near the Heaton Moor train station.

She added: “It’s a very strange phenomenon and one which the community are finding very distressing and baffling but I’m not sure there’s a lot that the police or council can do until somebody is caught in the act.”

Stockport council said it was monitoring the situation in collaboration with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and Natural England and that it had arranged for the clean-up of the meat whenever it is reported.

Residents have helped in the clean-up and have reported the bags of meat sometimes weighing as much as 20kg.

Slough borough council reported that it had convicted a man in December 2022 of the same offence after he was caught on CCTV.

He was fined £2,640 for each offence of fly-tipping the raw meat, ordered to pay a £190 victim surcharge, as well as £2,872 towards court costs, bringing the total to £13,622.

Greater Manchester Police have been approached for comment.

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