Fundraiser by Salisbury man helps clear fly-tipped waste on Hertfordshire farm
Archie Ford's crowd funder smashed £50,000 in less than three days
A Salisbury man who's fundraiser helped an elderly farmer in Hertfordshire clear two hundred tonnes of fly-tipped waste on his land says he's staggered by people's generosity.
Archie Ford told us he was inspired to do something to help the farmer after reading about the situation, which had remained unresolved since last year, in a newspaper.
"The sheer injustice of it, the fact that people are operating outside of the law with impunity, doing this and affecting hardworking people, It just really rankled, it didn't sit well with me and I thought I'd do something," Archie said.
He decided to create the fundraiser, which smashed its target in days.
"I thought it'd be a protracted thing of asking family and friends to donate and stuff, but a few media outlets picked it up and three days later we'd exceeded the target, which was just staggering," Archie told us.
Archie said he felt "ecstatic" to have been able to help the farmer, who he has been to meet. But he said the experience has taught him about the scale of the problem across the country.
"The law is inadequate currently. People aren't being prosecuted for this. And I think the instances of this happening is up almost 10% on last year. So something needs to change," he said.
The NFU is seeking a law change from the Government, insisting not everyone will be able to rely on a fundraiser and the generosity of others to get them out of a hole.
"It shouldn't rely on the public put their hands in their pockets to solve these problems and be, you know, that's not a sustainable way of going about fighting and combating this problem," Archie said.