Peterborough City Council to pay to clear burnt out cars from city land

The nine vans and cars have been left in Oxney Road, Peterborough over the past few weeks.

A number of been abandoned on their roof or side, with windows smashed and paint torched away.

The vehicles will be removed from the private land this weekend by Peterborough City Council - however, despite the fact they have been left on private land, a spokesman for Peterborough City Council said it was ‘exceptional circumstances’ and they would be removing the vehicles at no cost to the land owner.

The spokesman said the land owner would be expected to pay for removal of other rubbish from the land, and also measures to stop similar incidents happening again.

It would normally cost a land owner £60 to remove one vehicle from private land, if they contacted the city council to carry out the job - meaning it would cost £540 to remove all the cars.

Station Commander Karl Bowden, joint head of the SaferPeterborough Partnership, said: “The partnership is aware of the current issues on Oxney Road and all agencies are working together to address these.

“The fire service has been called to incidents in Oxney Road on a number of occasions, which have been fires in the open, rubbish fires and car fires.

“The cars that have been abandoned and burnt out are located on private land. Officers working in the SaferPeterborough Partnership, which includes the city council, fire service and police, have agreed with the landowner’s management to arrange removal of all vehicles this weekend.

“We will also be working with the landowner to remove the rubbish accumulation at the same location and put measures in place to stop it reoccurring.”

A spokesman for Cambridgeshire police said they were aware of the vehicles that had been left at the site, but no crime had been reported to them.