A PROPERTY developer is trying to use a legal loophole to create an authorised rubbish dump in the middle of an Oxford neighbourhood.

Developer Martin Young has applied to turn a plot of land next to a public footpath and behind three homes in Long Wall in Littlemore into an official tip, claiming the council has not acted against flytippers.

The loophole would allow Mr Young to turn the land into a dump if he can prove it has been used continuously for rubbish for 10 years.

He has applied for a certificate covering existing use.

The 65-year-old says the plot is piled up with 40 tonnes of dumped rubbish and soil and has submitted letters from Oxfordshire County Council proving it has been used as a tip since 1970.

The plan has outraged neighbours whose gardens border the site and led to fears that the scheme could lead to similar applications to try to legalise other dumps in the city.

Mr Young bought the 20ft by 40ft plot of land for £600 in October 2007 and had an application for a single storey chalet refused in April.

Although he said he is not responsible for most of the rubbish, Mr Young admitted he had tipped some concrete onto the site when he was clearing out garages in nearby Milvery Way.

He said: “If I get the certificate of lawful use as a rubbish dump there’d be nothing to stop me using it as a rubbish dump, put up some fences and pile the rubbish two or three metres high.

“Perhaps a recycling firm might like to rent it and make regular use of it.

“If it came to it I’d allow dumping on there.

“However I am trying to find the best use of land there but I have got to persuade planners that there ought to be something better there.”

Council spokesman Louisa Dean said the council had not carried out any enforcement at the site over the past 19 years as it had received no reports of fly-tipping from the public and council officers had not discovered it.

She said the application was being considered, with a decision due by October 13.

Tony Eaude, 57, who has lived in the street 19 years, said: “It’s a completely inappropriate area for any storage of rubbish because it’s a residential area.”

Mum-of-two Gobnait O’Shaughnessy, whose vegetable patch and garden is separated from the site by a wooden fence, said: “We fear it’s going to be running wild with rats and it would be an eyesore at the bottom of the garden.”

Littlemore councillor Gill Sanders, who spoke against the application at a committee meeting on Monday, said: “Who would like to have a rubbish dump on the other side of their garden fence?

“It’s a worry that this could start to happen elsewhere in Oxford.”

Mr Young, who lives in Headington Hill, Headington, won a legal victory over the council this year when the authority was fined for illegally crushing his car.