Warning to East Lancashire ‘skip surfers’ (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Warning to East Lancashire ‘skip surfers’

3:14pm Tuesday 6th December 2011 in Haslingden By Peter Magill, Chief reporter

A COUNCILLOR has warned potential ‘skip surfers’ after three East Lancashire men were caught trespassing at a recycling centre.

In September a Burnley man, believed to have been searching through skips, was found dead at a tip.

But intruders are still targeting waste recycling sites in the hunt for discarded gems, it has emerged.

Three men from Blackburn were convicted of trying to steal from the Duckworth Clough centre in Clough End Road, Haslingden, on August 14.

Andrew Murray, 45, of Formby Close, Colin James Patrick Wright, of St Marys Close, 22, and a 17-year-old, youth, all of Blackburn, appeared before Burnley magistrates to admit the offence.

Murray and Wright were conditionally discharged for 12 months, with £40 costs, and the youth was given a rehabilitation order.

Coun David Stansfield, who represents Haslingden’s Worsley ward, said he often used the site and had been told by site operatives that people used all kinds of methods in their attempts to breach security there.

“People are going through hard times but at the end of the day they have got to realise the dangers of their actions,” he added.

Earlier this year father-of-five Jason Marren, 32, from Burnley, was found dead at the Whinney Hill landfill site in Hyndburn.

It is understood he had been searching for scrap at the Heasandford recycling centre in Burnley before.