People have been urged to stop leaving bags and boxes outside local charity shops to prevent damage to donated goods.
When these items are exposed to the elements or damaged by rain, they can no longer be used, meaning the charity shops are left with unusable donations.
Rachel Stroud, who lives in Westbury, was recently walking through the town when she noticed items left outside the Dorothy House charity shop. She stopped to take a photo of the pile of unsealed boxes, which included soft toys and paintings that had been left soaked by overnight rain.
Ironically, the dumped donations were left beneath a ‘no fly-tipping’ sign, which Rachel claims was put up by Wiltshire Council.
Rachel said, “It isn’t just Dorothy House that has problems with items being left outside their shop – Sue Ryder and Imperial Charity also have the same issues. The only thing Wiltshire Council has done is send the shops a ‘no fly-tipping’ poster for their windows, which has been ignored.
“There is supposed to be CCTV cameras covering the High Street and High Street Car Park – so why can’t these images be used to issue fines?
“Wiltshire Council are absolutely useless and need to do what they are paid to do instead of ignoring this.”
Rachel added that she reported the soaked donations outside the Dorothy House charity shop to the council.
Parvis Khansari, corporate director of place at Wiltshire Council, said, “We are aware of recent fly-tipping incidents outside charity shops in Westbury and have inspected the waste for evidence and sought CCTV footage. We investigate all incidents of fly-tipping, but as these are live investigations, we are unable to comment further on these cases at this stage.
“We are supporting charity shops throughout Wiltshire to assist with the clearance of unwanted items left outside their premises and have provided signage to advise people of their responsibilities when making donations.”
Rowena Midgley, head of retail for Dorothy House, said, “The generosity of donations from our donors, helping us raise vital funds for Dorothy House, is phenomenal, and we couldn’t raise over £5.8 million each year (more than the annual income we receive from the government) without your support.
“We can only accept your clean and non-broken donations, details of which can be found on our website.
“On occasions, donations are left outside of shop trading hours. This means they often get damaged by rain, (or worse), are vandalised or stolen, and the kind donations supporters wanted to give to Dorothy House have to be disposed of at a financial cost to the Hospice.
“Therefore, we would encourage generous donors to only drop off donations when our shops are open.”
Pictured: Rain-soaked donations outside Dorothy House shop in Westbury
