Careful, you might need a licence.

Ridiculous though it may seem, new rules on carrying scrap mean that removing any waste or scrap for someone else means you need a waste-carriers permit.

Even in these regulated and environmentally-friendly days that's a step too far says Gail Turner, a third generation Heselwood who has grown up in the industry.

"We realise that there have to be rules and regulations but it's taking it to the nth degree when they insist on this," said 52-year-old Gail.

"The problem is if things are over-regulated people will just stop coming to places like us and start fly-tipping. Having to have a waste-carriers licence for a few bits is a step too far.

"If someone has a couple of car batteries to get rid of he shouldn't have to have a licence to bring them to us. People just won't bother and they'll end up in a hedgerow somewhere and nobody wants that.

"We have 24-hour surveillance over all the yard and we know every vehicle that comes in and out."

And there have been some strange ones of late.

Tractors and trailers with farm mud still clinging are often seen in the industrial streets of Attercliffe these days as farmers cash in on their old machinery.

"Whenever you go past a farm you see machinery in their yard," said Robin Turner of Heselwood's in Stevenson Road, Attercliffe.

"Well they are weighing it all in now the price is so high.

"We have had ploughs, slurry trucks and anything they can get in here. They bring it on a tractor and trailer through the streets.

"Someone, not a farmer, did try to sell us a £20,000 Range Rover for scrap value once. We wouldn't take it obviously, and neither would most others.

"But if they look long enough they'll find somebody who will."

Keith stops after 43 years

WHEN Keith Coles started work at Walter Heselwood's they were still scrapping second world war ships.

The Beatles were in the charts, Sheffield's steel industry was in its pomp and Wednesday were less than a year away from an FA Cup final at Wembley.

Keith, 65 next month has been cutting, grinding, sorting and shifting scrap for 43 years.

He's seen tanks, barges and even chunks of the old Ark Royal pass through the yard to it's final destination.

"It's more or less the same job it was when I started here," said 64-year-old Keith, of Mosbrough.

"They didn't give us gloves back then and we used to tape up our finger ends with masking tape for a bit of protection. There are more restrictions on what you can do within rules on the environment but that's only right.

"We've cut up old tanks and barges, aircraft and all sorts in here.

"I'm looking forward to retirement. I've always enjoyed working here and I've never been out of work in my life but I've had enough now."

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