We live next to an illegal car graveyard guarded by ferocious dogs – it’s an huge eyesore & puts our kids in danger
LOCALS are terrified an illegal car scrapyard on their doorstep puts their kids in danger.
Not only does the heap pose a fire risk, residents claim, it's also guarded by ferocious dogs to keep people away.
And although the owners of the yard have been ordered to clear it up, neighbours don't feel any safer.
Concerned mum-of-two Jenny Smith, 31, said: "I worry about my children playing near it. It's awful.
"They always like to play around there and I tell them not to go through the cut or go near it.
"There's often a few fires coming from that way, there's a waste site behind it where there's a lot of blazes."
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Brothers Yusuf, 48, and Munir Mohammed, 58, directors of Jap Parts Ltd, in Stockton-On-Tees, Co Durham, run the site which houses 300 old motors.
The pair have been ordered to pay £1,591 in fines and clear the Britannia Road yard following a probe by the Environment Agency.
It found many of the vehicles had not been properly de-polluted and were still full of hazardous liquids such as fuel and oil.
Despite this, shop assistant Jenny added: "It's been business as usual."
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Jamie Buttery, 34, who is unemployed, claims the site is "a death trap".
He added: "There's dogs on guard there, and they're big dogs. You hear the dogs in the middle of the night sometimes.
"If there's kids that put their hands under the gate it could be dangerous."
The brothers owned two areas of land next to each at Britannia Road and Phoenix Sidings.
Their company had an environmental permit in place to run a scrap vehicle site on the Phoenix Sidings land, which was full of vehicles.
The Britannia Road site, for which there was no permit, also had about 40 scrap vehicles stored on it.
Documents show that Jap Parts Ltd is in liquidation and had stopped trading in November 2014.
Pensioner Raymond Doneathy, 85, said the scrapheap's proximity to a bridge over the railway is concerning.
He said: "If a fire broke out those stairs would collapse.
"A bigger issue in the area is the waste land behind the scrapyards. It's used as a dumping groups. It's riddled with rats and kids set fire to the furniture there.
"If a fire starts and catches onto the scrap yard it could be very bad."
But nurse Lily Bijesh, 45 claims the company should have been given more support by the agency instead of being fined.
She said: "The fire hazard never crossed my mind.
"Businesses have had difficulties recently and throughout Covid, they should have been helped."
Speaking from the scrapyard, Munir Mohammed said: "We've been double crossed by the Environment Agency, it's all Green Peace activists.
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"It's all bureaucracy. We haven't broken any laws.
"Apart from the only keeping cars for three years, which is new."
