Episode 10 Call the Council

From grappling with our daily grind...

Why have they suddenly decided to dump all this waste

in other people's bins?

..to unearthing the extraordinary...

Wow, it's Wigan's gold mask.

..battling those blighting the streets...

That's not acceptable, really.

..bringing the community together...

-Hi there.

-Hi.

..and being on hand in troubled times.

I've got kids. We can't even open bedroom windows cos of the noise.

So it's affecting everything - sleep...

You now, just day-to-day living, really.

In this series, we follow frontline staff

working for Wigan Council in Greater Manchester...

I speak to the waste. I sort of say to it, like, "Come on, talk to me.

"How have you got here?"

..like council officers across the country

that are keeping us free from harm...

You're looking at really serious injury or possibly death.

..stepping in to try and solve our problems...

I mean, it's constant.

You'll be told today that we will be serving notice.

..and responding to residents...

Much appreciate what you're doing anyway.

..when they...

What was the inquiry today?

..call the council.

Coming up...

..council officers crack down on shopkeepers selling alcohol

to underage children...

Hiya. Trading Standards.

You've just sold to a young lady who's only 16 years old.

..deal with dangerous dumped waste...

They've no regard. No regard for anything

if they're just going to dump hazardous waste like this.

..and try to help tired residents in a flap about a cockerel

disturbing the peace.

There's a window, you know, so it'll be 12 till four

when you get some silence.

But that's about it.

COCKEREL CROWS

The UK's local councils are responsible

for protecting us from harm.

They ensure that local businesses obey the laws

laid down by national government.

Key to this are Trading Standards officers.

20 miles west of Manchester,

Wigan Council's Trading Standards team is led by Julie Middlehurst.

I think a lot of people would be surprised at just

how much we are responsible for.

We enforce legislation around estate agents,

we visit second-hand shops, we regulate car dealers.

Basically, every business that trades,

we have some control over.

A big piece of the work that we do is about stopping our young people

from accessing alcohol.

As far as the community is concerned,

young people drinking alcohol

can often result in antisocial behaviour.

And we've seen a reduction in our young people who are drinking.

You know, but we will keep going.

Shops selling alcohol to anyone under 18 are breaking the law.

It's the job of Trading Standards officers nationwide

to stamp out underage sales in their borough.

More than 30 children a day

are admitted to hospital in the UK

with drink-related problems.

And around one in seven 15- to 16-year-olds admit to being

involved in an accident or injured

as a result of drinking alcohol.

Wigan's Trading Standards manager Terry Gregson is all too aware

of the effects of mixing minors and alcohol.

What we're doing is not just about enforcing the laws

to stop youngsters getting alcohol - there's reasons behind it.

One - youngsters get alcohol, it can cause antisocial behaviour.

And also their own health.

Because if they do drink regularly at that age,

then it's going to do no good for their livers

and what have you in the future.

So it's about the local community being safer and quieter for

the youngsters and residents of the place,

and also the long-term health of the youngsters themselves.

Following tip-offs from Wigan residents

about a number of local shops selling alcohol to children,

Terry has recruited a 16-year-old volunteer.

Today, she'll be putting the shops' sales policies to the test

under Terry's watchful eye.

If they are selling, then we get a sale, then obviously,

there will be a formal action taken after the event.

The council has granted the shops their licence to sell alcohol,

and Terry and the Trading Standards team have encouraged them

to ask anyone they think is under 25 to prove their age.

The officers are now going to walk with the volunteer toward

the shop, and the volunteer will go in the shop and try to purchase.

If she hasn't purchased, we can carry on to the next one.

But if the shops fail to follow the rules

and sell alcohol to Terry's underage test purchaser,

the goods will be used as evidence in any possible prosecution.

-No sale?

-Yeah, that's right.

They asked for ID? Good.

They did what they should do, they asked for ID.

She hasn't got any, so they refused the sale.

It's a good start, but Terry and the team have a long list of shops

that have been complained about.

They asked for ID again? Never mind. Right. OK.

And Terry intends to put all of them to the test.

Next one.

It's hard to predict what goes on with these, really.

There's a lot of factors involved.

And, you know, sometimes we think

we're never going to get sales and you get lots.

Other days, you've get lots of complaints,

like we have today, and so far none.

If Terry and his team aren't sold any alcohol,

they won't have any evidence to support

the complaints they've received

and won't be able to take any legal action against the shopkeepers.

But just as it seems the calls to the council have been made in vain,

there's a sale.

Yes, we've got a sale.

We have a sale.

What is it?

Smirnoff Ice. Right, OK.

-So, who was it who sold it?

-A gentleman.

-Was there only one person in?

-Yeah.

-Right, OK.

All right, well, we'll go back and see now.

Right, let's go back and tag it.

The booze will be used as evidence.

If there's a court case,

the shopkeeper could lose his licence and face a £5,000 fine.

Coming up, Terry and his team confront the shopkeeper

who's broken the law.

Hiya. Trading Standards.

You've just sold to a young lady who's only 16 years old.

As well as taking on unlawful traders,

local councils are also called upon to keep noise in our neighbourhoods

to an acceptable level.

Keeping a lid on antisocial behaviour in Wigan is Pete Rutter.

My job covers quite a large remit - noise complaints, barking dogs,

music from neighbours' properties.

We also get neighbour disputes in, neighbours not getting on,

boundary issues, that kind of thing.

Every year, councils in the UK receive more than 100,000 complaints

about noise in residential areas.

2,500 people are issued with formal warning notices.

And officers like Pete will help to secure around 50 convictions

if the noise still doesn't stop.

This morning, Pete's on the trail of an unseen menace.

It's been rousing residents in the suburban streets of Wigan

at the crack of dawn.

COCKEREL CROWS

When they've called the council to complain,

Pete has been taking their calls.

We've had reports of a cockerel in a residential area.

It's cock-a-doodling, mainly in the morning.

But it's persistently, every morning, early hours,

which you can imagine...

So it's not going down well with the residents in the area.

One tired resident wishing this bird would cock-a-doodle-don't

is Graeme Higgins.

-Well, it's...

-COCKEREL CROWS

I mean, it's constant.

And it's the early mornings that really are the sort of

the biggest frustration.

Because it will start really any time from 4.30 in the morning...

and, you know, that's early by anybody's standards.

Probably the latest we've heard it has been about 11, 11.30 at night

and probably the earliest, I think probably about four, 4.30,

So there's a window, you know, sort of between 12 till four

when you get some silence, but that's about it.

Cockerels have been part of the English countryside

for centuries, but their notoriously noisy nature

made them unpopular in more urban areas.

Until now.

Half a million UK households now keep chickens,

almost ten times as many as there were

at the beginning of the millennium.

Where there's chickens, there's cockerels

and where there's cockerels, there's complaints.

One council has reported a fourfold increase in complaints

about roosters since 2010.

Wigan is the latest borough to fall foul of this growing trend.

We get a lot of noise nuisance cases.

The majority of them are the loud music, loud radio, dogs barking...

In particular with dogs, there are interventions we can suggest,

with regard to dog training.

It's a little different with a cockerel.

I'm not quite sure of any cockerel trainings we have in the borough.

Whether it is canines are cockerels, Pete has to investigate.

He's tried to talk to the cockerel's owner

to ask him to remove it without success.

As a result,

he's asked the complainants to keep a diary of the disturbances.

When you look at investigating noise nuisance, you look at three things,

and that's severity, duration and frequency.

So, in a nutshell, sort of how bad it is,

how long it lasts for and how often it happens.

We've received diary sheets to indicate

the times that it's happening

that suggested that it's happening at sort of 4am onwards,

which obviously could be construed as a nuisance

if it's happening persistently.

Having collected the cockerel's

sleep-deprived neighbours' noise diaries,

they suggested that the disturbances were frequent enough

to warrant installing sound-recording equipment

in one of their houses.

Well, I'm just connecting all the wires at the second.

This is the microphone that will pick up all the recordings

over a period of eight days.

This will let us determine whether or not

there's a statutory noise nuisance occurring.

If Pete decides the noise can legally be labelled a nuisance,

the cockerel's owner will be given three weeks

to stop the rowdy rooster disturbing his neighbours.

If he doesn't, he'll face a fine or even a conviction.

So, all the gentleman needs to do

when he hears the cockerel next door is push this button.

It will light red, which will show that the recording has begun,

and that will record for three minutes.

Still to come...

..will Pete's recordings mean this bird has to be re-homed?

COCKEREL CROWS

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The work local authorities do

is partly funded by the council tax we pay,

so many of us have an opinion on whether they spend it wisely.

I think that city councils should maybe look into plans of developing

the transport a little bit more in the area.

I ride a bicycle as well sometimes, and I think it would be nice to have

a bit more selection of cycle routes.

Better roads that need dealing with, that need tackling with,

that have been that way for years and years.

And when you're paying your council tax,

you wonder why it's not been dealt with.

I think the council could improve

recycling, so for instance,

we can't do plastic recycling,

which I think all councils should do.

So there are bits that are missing,

but on the whole, they do try to do their best.

The council department tasked with

keeping our communities clean, tidy and safe

is Environmental Services.

When fly-tippers strike,

environmental enforcement officers like Mark Farrimond's job

is to find and possibly prosecute the culprits.

After 37 years working for the council,

Mark still loves nothing more than a rummage through rubbish.

I like the investigation side of it.

I get to a job and I sort of say to it, like, "Come on, talk to me.

"How have you got here?"

So, I'm sort of surveying the land,

sort of looking for tyre tracks, anything that can sort of say,

"Right, they've come from this direction."

So, yeah, I really do like that, the investigation side of it.

Yeah, it appeals to me a lot.

I sort of speak to the waste to sort of...

You know, as I'm going along, looking for clues and things.

It might sound a bit sad, but that's just me.

That's how I deal with it.

There are more than three quarters

of a million reports of fly-tipping

in the UK every year.

It costs local authorities

over £45 million to clear up.

But it's not just ordinary

domestic waste that's dumped on our highways and byways.

Today, Mark is responding to a call to the council

about some fly-tipped waste that's potentially lethal.

I've had a report to say that there's some asbestos

been fly-tipped in some drums.

And it's this plot of land here, at the side.

There we are, see?

Now banned in the UK, asbestos was first widely used

during the rebuilding of Britain after World War II.

If inhaled, it can cause lung cancer.

And in the UK, more than 2,500 people a year

die from asbestos-related diseases.

It's vital Mark acts fast today.

It's corrugated roofing asbestos.

If, for instance, it was a dry atmosphere

and maybe a bit of wind got up, then, yeah, the particles,

you wouldn't want to be stood around it.

But when it's damp like this in the atmosphere,

it's probably better for us to be here,

then it's not giving off dust.

If we're not disturbing it, which we're not, then we're safe.

Mark's been to this site before.

Secluded and easy to access,

it's a popular place for Mark's unscrupulous fly-tipping foe.

They've no regard. No regard for anything

if they're just going to dump hazardous waste like this.

And it is in the middle of Wigan, not far from the town centre.

It's got a lot of passing trade, passing people,

there's schools nearby, there's shops nearby.

Because it's so dangerous,

asbestos has to be disposed of properly by a specialist.

But this costs around £50 per square metre,

so if profit margins are tight, it sometimes gets dumped.

It's annoying.

They've obviously done a job

and then just disposed of it for nothing.

That's the problem. You get opportunists who do cheap jobs

and dispose of the hazardous waste cheaply.

Now the cost of clearing this waste will fall to Wiganers.

The problem with this fly-tip is it'll come down

to Wigan Council tax rate payers, really.

As in the disposal, the cost, it all goes on...

That's basically what happens.

You know, we get a budget to work with,

and it'll come out of that budget.

What we'll have to do in this respect is

we'll have to get on to a private contractor

and ask him to give us a price for getting it moved.

As well as getting the dangerous waste moved,

Mark needs to find out who dumped it.

If caught, the offenders could receive a prison sentence

of up to five years, a £50,000 fine and the bill for the clear-up.

So Mark needs to find evidence that could result in a prosecution.

Looking for any packaging that may be around.

And he may have a lead.

I'm looking at that label, and there's a possible link

that we could use that as a possible line of inquiry.

I may have to do some digging on the internet

to see if there's anything like that around here

with those labels on and things.

But it does give us, you know, a positive line.

Coming up, Mark's investigation goes global.

The label that was on the drums is from Brazil.

I'm hoping that it may lead us

to perhaps somebody in the Northwest or very local to us.

I like to leave no stone unturned.

From fly-tipping to shopkeepers breaking the law,

Terry Gregson of the Trading Standard's team

has received complaints about shops

selling alcohol to children under 18.

They've hit the streets using a 16-year-old volunteer to put

a series of shops to the test.

And one failed.

Yes, we've got a sale.

We have a sale.

Having bagged and tagged the booze,

Terry and his Trading Standards colleague Ian Kelsall

need to confront the shopkeeper who sold it.

Hiya. Trading standards. Mr Gregson.

That's my colleague, Mr Kelsall.

You've just sold to a young lady who's only 16 years old.

So we need to take a few details from you.

I did have a bit of a doubt.

When I first looked at her, she looked like 18 to me, or over.

Then after I served her, I had a bit of doubt about it then.

-But by the time I served it...

-Why did you not stop in between?

-I should've double checked, asked for her ID...

-Is that her?

Yeah, that was the girl.

But obviously, any doubt, you shouldn't sell, obviously.

When I looked at her first... When I looked at her...

As well as asking anyone suspected of being under 18

to prove their age,

the shopkeeper should be keeping up-to-date records

of any times he's refused to sell alcohol.

It's not a legal requirement, but it is proof of good practise.

Do you want to get the refusal book out for me?

OK, so the most recent one's on the top, is that right?

-Yeah.

-All right.

Your last refusal was...2010.

They haven't been used in the last five years, have they?

With no entries in his refusals book for the past five years,

Terry and Ian only have this trader's word

that he's following the rules.

-It might be an idea from now on to start using the book.

-Yeah.

-OK?

It can be difficult sometimes, but it helps.

It's no excuse, but I've been working long hours as well.

It's like, I've not got...

One of them staff girls that hasn't turned up today.

It's my excuse. I've been running out the back, stocking it up.

It's not... It shouldn't be... That's not the excuse.

-I had a doubt, but I had it too late.

-OK.

From now on, if you've got any doubts,

-don't make a sale.

-Ask for ID.

-If they haven't got ID, you don't sell it.

-They don't get served.

Terry and Ian now need to arrange a date for a formal interview

at the council with the shopkeeper and his wife

to discuss their sales practices.

I'll say what's going to happen next, OK?

This form here, I'll ask you to give that to your wife,

-cos she's the license holder.

-Yes, she'll be in next week.

I want yourself and your wife to come here,

ring the number on the bottom and arrange an interview.

And you'll come into the offices, OK?

And we'll interview your wife and yourself,

and you can explain to us what normally goes on in the shop

and the reasons behind why the sale took place.

All right? Where in the meantime,

-if you have any doubt, stop the sale.

-OK.

If they look under 25, ask for ID.

OK? And record it in your book when you refuse them.

It's a result for Terry and his team.

The upcoming interview will decide this trader's fate.

He isn't being as vigilant as he should be.

You know, he had suspicions and yet he still, you know, sold.

He knows what to do and he just didn't do it.

So, you know, he's been very silly.

So it's unfortunate, but, you know, now we've got to,

you know, interview him formally and see what action we're going to take.

Local councils are involved in many of the key moments of our lives...

..from the day our births are registered

to the day our loved ones bid us goodbye.

David Makinson's job at Wigan Council

is dealing with the dearly departed.

I didn't think I'd be a gravedigger.

Actually, I wanted to be a bus driver when I were a kid.

But it's a very important job.

You've got to treat every funeral as though it was one of your own,

and do it...do it right.

There are over 15,000 cemeteries in the UK

conducting up to 150,000 burials every year.

David has been digging graves in Wigan for 23 years.

Different cemeteries, different soil.

Here, there's a lot of sand here, as you can see.

Plenty of moles in this cemetery.

-They love it in here.

-HE CHUCKLES

It's ten in the morning,

and David's preparing a grave for a funeral tomorrow.

Wigan's Hindley Cemetery was founded in 1818,

when mechanical diggers were a distant pipedream.

Sometimes you have to make do to get them in.

It's why the plots are so narrow in the old ones,

cos they've only been dug with a spade, so...

But even modern machinery

and an expert eye are no match for Mother Nature.

And today's grave is in one of the wettest parts of the cemetery.

More...more clay here than soil.

Well, there's a lot of sludge here. It will be wet on here.

It's always went on here.

Look at Neil's feet, how sludgy it is.

The clock is ticking towards tomorrow's funeral,

but the grave is getting wetter by the minute.

..all the water there.

Plenty of bubbling. Can't you hear it? Bubbling?

David's got less than 24 hours to get this grave dry,

presentable and ready for tomorrow's funeral.

The pressure's on.

But at another council cemetery in Lower Ince,

home to the borough's only crematorium,

things are much more sedate.

Mark Birchall has been part of the council's

Bereavement Services team for almost 20 years.

He's helped hundreds of people say goodbye to their loved ones.

If you're being cremated and you're a Wiganer...

when you meet your maker, you've got to come my way, haven't you?

Around 70% of us now choose to be cremated rather than buried.

It's a process that fascinates people Mark meets.

When I go on holiday, and you can be sat at bars, stuff like that,

and you get chatting to people

and the usual things you do, isn't it?

"Oh, what do you do for a living?"

The minute they find out, everybody's intrigued, aren't they?

All the questions start.

"Do you cremate three or four people at once?"

"Do you get your own ashes back?"

People believe things and old wives' tales.

What I usually say to people, when my dad passed away,

he was cremated here. Now, if I wasn't going to get his ashes back,

I wouldn't have had him cremated here, would I?

You know what I mean? It seems to appease people a bit, that.

Sometimes I think I better to tell them

I'm a road sweeper or something like that, you know what I mean?

I'd probably get a bit less grief then, wouldn't I?

You know what I mean?

Mark's midway through his first cremation of the day.

But no two cremations take the same time.

It depends on the size of the person, doesn't it?

You know what I mean? Chris would be two hours.

-HE CHUCKLES

-I would've been two hours last year,

but now I've lost all my weight, I'm an hour-and-a-half man.

HE LAUGHS

By law, officers like Mark must cremate bodies on the same day

as the funeral service.

Today, he's running to schedule.

It is the end of cremation.

It was an hour and 50 minutes. Just waiting for safety checks.

Once that kicks in, it's safe for the raking down.

Mark manages an average of six cremations a day.

But the following morning,

gravediggers David and Neil are still struggling

to get one grave ready in time for the funeral later in the day.

There's a lot of water in there.

We'll definitely need the pump on that, Neil.

Right in.

With just an hour to go before the mourners arrive,

David's pumping water from the saturated grave.

But there's another unexpected hitch.

As David and Neil get the water under control,

today's funeral director calls to tell them

that rather than a standard-sized coffin,

the deceased will be buried in a much bigger casket.

The grave they've dug is too small.

We've got to dig it again and make it wider.

With it being a casket, it's the same width all the way down now,

where as before, when it were a coffin,

the widest part would've been here at the head

and then you could have it narrower at the feet.

With it being a casket, it's the same width there as it is here.

Coming up, David and Neil face a race against time

to provide a fitting farewell for a family's loved one.

We've got about three quarters of an hour now before the funeral comes.

Three weeks ago, Terry and the Trading Standards team

caught a shopkeeper selling alcohol to an underage volunteer.

Hiya, Trading Standards.

You've just sold to a young lady who's only 16 years old.

Now Terry is preparing to formally interview

the shopkeeper under caution.

This is a serious offense of selling alcohol to youngsters.

We've got to sort of try and establish from the interview

whether or not it has been a genuine mistake or whether there's

a bit of deliberate action here, or whether they don't care about it.

So we have some sort of quite serious questions we've asked them,

under caution, to see if we can suss and sort out

whether or not these are...

somebody's made a silly mistake, one-off,

or whether there's a pattern of behaviour here.

Obviously, once we've done the interview,

that will decide whether or not we prosecute, or not, in this case.

You know, a prosecution could affect him the rest of his life.

You know, that one-off, silly mistake,

they could lose their alcohol license.

In which case, that would possibly shut the shop down.

Whilst Terry has a long list of questions to ask,

for the shopkeeper,

the interview is his chance to put forward his side of the story.

Basically, he felt that the volunteer looked 18,

although he admitted himself he should have asked for ID.

He was 50-50 whether to do it, and he didn't, and he should have done.

And he's learnt from that.

So in this case, we decided that what we'll do,

we'll do what we call a simple caution,

which isn't a prosecution, which is a formal record of the offense

that has been committed by him, and that will be kept on record.

By doing the formal interview with him,

he now fully understands the seriousness of the case

and that he could've gone to court to we could have prosecuted him.

However, we feel it's more appropriate to do

the simple caution this time.

But he still realises it's a formal process.

And if he did sell again, then it would end up in court,

no doubt about it.

Across the borough, council officer Pete Rutter

is hot on the trail of a crowing cockerel

that's causing noise nuisance in the neighbourhood.

COCKEREL CROWS

It will start, really, any time from 4.30 in the morning

and, you know, that's early by anybody's standards.

Pete's installed sound equipment to record the rowdy rooster,

and if it's as bad as residents say,

he'll insist the owner re-homes it.

Over a period of eight days, this will let us determine

whether or not there's a statutory noise nuisance occurring.

Today, Pete's reviewing the recordings whilst residents

wait to see if their early-morning wake-up call can be stopped.

We've got roughly about 8 1/2 hours of three-minute recordings...

..to listen to. So we've been quite thorough.

It's a painstaking task,

but if he's going to help the complainants,

Pete needs to listen carefully.

COCKEREL CROWS

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Well, we're looking to establish severity, duration and frequency

when we listen to the recordings.

So it's essentially how often it's happening,

how long it lasts and how loud it is.

It's...it's quite persistent, we'll say, at the moment.

COCKEREL CROWS

It's quite a heavy residential area, where the cockerel is.

And this gentleman isn't the only complainant we've got.

COCKEREL CROWS

I personally wouldn't want one next door to me.

Because I like me bed, and I'm not a morning person.

And cockerels are, so we wouldn't mix, I'm afraid.

After listening to over five hours of the recordings,

Pete's heard enough.

Normally what I'd do is I'd listen to the entire

bulk of the recordings and then make a decision,

but with there being so many, I'm just conscious of time.

And what I've already listened to has made my mind up.

So I've had a chat with enforcement

and we'll be serving a Section 80 on him next week.

The Section 80 notice will give the owner three weeks

to re-home the rooster and bring an end to the racket.

Time to share the news with resident Graeme.

-Good evening, Peter from the Safety Environment team.

-Hi.

-Are you OK?

-Yeah. Do you want to come in?

-Yeah, thank you very much. Cheers.

-Straight through.

So we've actually had noise kits in the other complainant's house

to record the disturbances.

And what I have listened to,

I'm confident that this is statutory noise nuisance.

-COCKEREL CROWS

-Because it's that obvious.

-Because it's that obvious.

-There it is, right on cue.

Right on cue. No, of course.

Although he's heard it, Pete still hasn't seen the cockerel,

so he's keen to get closer to where it's being kept.

-He's got it at the bottom of the garden.

-Right.

So I think it's probably closer to us than it is to him.

-Yeah.

-So he may not necessarily see it as a noise issue.

-Yeah.

-But obviously, we... In this house, we sleep at the back.

-Right.

-So...

It's a nuisance to you.

From sort of like 4.30 the morning, it's off, you know.

Particularly this time of year. Cos obviously it reacts...

-It works off light, doesn't it? I think.

-Right.

You know more than I do about cockerels, I don't know.

I think people's idea of cockerels is you hear them in the morning.

-They're a wake-up call, aren't they?

-Yeah.

The problem... And that is certainly the case,

but it's a very early morning call and it just keeps going.

-Yeah.

-I mean it just keeps going. It doesn't stop.

The noise recordings that I've gathered suggest that as well.

-That it's ongoing throughout the day.

-Yeah, it is.

And that's, you know... Exactly.

-I've listened to the early stuff first of all.

-Right.

On a number of days. And then I've started to go through a day.

-The gentleman that has recorded it has been quite thorough.

-OK.

-So...

We weren't sure cos we were filling in the forms and, obviously,

-it was very repetitive.

-Yeah.

-Cos that's all it does.

-It doesn't do anything else.

-Yeah.

So we were filling it in, thinking, "Is this really...?"

Though the sheets may seem a little onerous to yourself at the time,

they're quite a powerful tool we can use in court if necessary.

Well, I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope it's just a sensible...

Well, as I say, what we'll do today is we'll knock on...

Cos I haven't met him face-to-face yet,

so I'll just have to see what his take is on it all.

But he'll be told today that we will be serving notice

in about seven days' time.

-OK.

-Yeah, thanks very much indeed.

-If you've got any further problems, just give me a call.

-Will do.

-Thank you very much.

-With residents reassured,

Pete now needs to deliver the news to the offender's owner.

It doesn't look like there's anybody home.

Informing the cockerel's owner could be easier said than done.

But if the cockerel isn't re-homed within the next three weeks,

Pete will have to start court proceedings.

It's really important that I need to speak to him now,

make him aware of the situation.

Environmental enforcement officer Mark Farrimond is investigating

a potentially dangerous case of fly-tipped asbestos.

If we're not disturbing it, which we're not, then we're safe.

But if, for instance, it was, you know, a dry atmosphere

and maybe a bit of wind got up,

then, yeah, the particles, you wouldn't want to be stood around it.

It's a technical one.

Mark got the dangerous waste removed within 24 hours.

And now he needs to track down the tipper via information

he's gleaned from the waste.

The label that was on the drums, and it's from Brazil.

So we'll start with that first.

I like to leave no stone unturned.

..they're in the office tomorrow or not, that's the problem.

The beaches of Brazil are a long way from the mean streets of Wigan.

There's no suggestion the Brazilian company originally owning the drums

had anything to do with the asbestos or fly-tipping.

The barrels were used to import foodstuffs,

and Mark contacted them in the hope that they could help find out

who did dump the waste.

Unfortunately, in my e-mail, I did say that I was looking

because there had been a deposit of waste,

but obviously it's got lost in translation.

And that... I'm under the impression they think I want to buy some.

It's one that's got away from us.

You know, we'll just have to grin and bear it and walk away from that.

Mark's inquiries will not lead to

one of the 2,000 successful prosecutions carried out

by local councils every year.

But his investigation has had one positive outcome.

Hidden from public view,

the site has been a popular hot spot for fly-tippers.

What was happening was, because there was nothing here at all,

which should've been a fence,

and that's obviously gone on over the years,

there was easy access to the land.

So, they would drive in on here with their vehicles

and then just tipping off.

With it not being overlooked by anything,

it's...you know, it's pretty hidden,

so it was just a free-for-all, basically.

But now, in a bid to put a stop to illegal dumping here

once and for all, the council is swinging into action.

We've put the blocks in. It's to prevent vehicle access.

We call it target hardening.

Just bring it back this way a little bit. That's all right.

Target hardened, it's a job well done.

But sadly, fighting fly-tippers will be an ongoing battle

for officers like Mark.

It annoys me personally, especially when you get hazardous waste dumped.

There's no need for it at all.

If people are doing jobs

and they're factoring in how much the budget is for doing the job,

well, factor in disposing of it correctly.

Some people are just on the make.

It's just one of the blights of being a fly-tipping investigator,

I suppose.

At Lower Ince Cemetery, cremation technician Mark

has just finished his second funeral of the day.

Well, John, see you again. Take care. Thanks a lot.

Once the mourners leave,

Mark's job is to make sure the deceased's cremated ashes

are returned to their loved ones without a hitch.

To do this, he uses a ticketing system.

So, the ticket stays with the ashes everywhere they go,

so, you know, you're only getting your own ashes back.

So that goes from there into this cremulator.

They get tipped in there, and the ticket then goes onto there.

The cremulator turns any large ashes into fine powder.

But not everything that comes out of it goes to the loved ones.

Obviously, the coffins are constructed

and everything is stapled, screwed together,

so we get them all out.

They end up in the cremulator and we fish them out.

What we do with them, we bury them in consecrated ground.

Just so it's like... You know, it's done properly.

Mark's got everything under control at Lower Ince Crematorium.

But over at Hindley Cemetery,

gravediggers David and Neil have been grappling

with a grave that's too small.

Well, that's better.

That's 2m.

Having widened the grave to accommodate the larger casket,

the pair have hit another problem.

With the funeral due to start in less than half an hour,

water has begun to seep back into the grave.

And David isn't happy.

Neil's gone to get some wood mulch.

We'll give it another scrape with the bucket

and then he'll put wood mulch on the bottom,

it soaks a bit of water up then.

Looks a bit better than it being like watery, sludgy.

With just minutes to spare, David is finally satisfied.

It looks a lot better now, doesn't it?

The funeral can go ahead as planned.

Another busy day draws to a close for Mark in Lower Ince crematorium

and David and Neil in Hindley Cemetery.

Once we've covered the coffin, we'll get the machine then.

Fill the rest of it in with the machine once we cover the coffin up.

And that's us.

From start to finish.

Across town, Officer Pete Rutter

has been hot on the trail of an antisocial cockerel

who's been rousing residents in the early hours.

COCKEREL CROWS

Probably the latest we've heard it has been about 11, 11.30 at night,

and probably the earliest, I think probably about four, 4.30.

So there's a window, you know, sort of between 12 till 4

when you get some silence.

But that's about it.

Pete installed noise recording equipment

and then delivered the cockerel's owner a legal notice

giving him three weeks to remove the noisy bird.

Now, just a few weeks later, quiet has returned to the neighbourhood,

much to resident Graeme's relief.

You might...you may notice it's a little bit quieter

than the last time you were here.

So, how long has it been quiet for you?

Well, I think over the last sort of week.

But it's just gone back to normal. I mean, it's, you know, it's...

It's nice to be able to wake up with the alarm in the morning

rather than getting woken by a cockerel,

cos there's a big difference between sort of 4.30 and 6.30.

Right. Yeah, absolutely.

So that's been probably the most noticeable change.

It just means we can use the garden again.

Cos it was getting to the point

where it was literally from first thing in the morning,

it was going on right throughout the day.

And it may sound quite nice, a cockerel,

the first couple times you hear it,

but when it's going off every nine, ten seconds...

Obviously, I'm just glad that you're happy.

My other complainant appears to be happy.

As far as we're concerned, everything seems quite quiet

and we're all happy. All right?

-Thanks very much.

-Thank you.

-Cheers.

-I'll show you out.

-Cheers. Thank you.

It's nice just to be able to help, you know, help somebody out with it,

who have an issue that's persistent enough and nuisance enough

that they have to call the council in the first place.

And to be able to sort of help them with that

and come to a satisfied outcome is really satisfying for me.

Pete's allusive bird now has a new home with other chickens

and cockerels on an allotment ten miles away,

where he can crow to his heart's content.

COCKEREL CROWS