Scouts, leaders and community workers were ‘crestfallen’ to find mounds of rubbish dumped at their hut.

Mattresses, door frames, brick rubble and a palm tree were among the piles of rubbish left dumped outside the hut used by the 1st Harrow Weald Scout Group last week.

Flytippers gained access to the scout hut, in Clamp Hill, Stanmore, on Wednesday evening last week - the second time this has happened in a fortnight – by levering the chain off the fence.

Paul Tozer, who runs the scout group, said: “The hut is a playground for the children, who are between seven and 16-years-old. They run riot in the place and the grounds because that is exactly what the hut is for – them.

“Now we are having to worry about their safety every second in case they trip over the dumped brickwork or fall on some wood.

“It is obviously a scout hut as we have signs and banners everywhere, and the scouts were absolutely furious, they were really not happy.

“It was a real eye opener for the children, to see what some people could be like.”

The clear-up is already underway, with convicted criminals on a community payback scheme working to get rid of the rubbish as quickly as possible.

Mr Tozer said: “These people have already done amazing things inside our scout hut, but they spent the whole of last Friday clearing away the rubbish and burning what they could.

“We were all really upset about someone doing this in our hut, and they were really crestfallen to find that someone had left all that rubbish here.

“The place has that effect on people – they could see all their hard work being ruined as well as ours.

“They really hated to see it.”

An officer from Harrow Council’s eco-crime unit also visited the hut last week, and the incident is now under investigation.

The scouts believe the key to finding out who had littered their site with rubbish is in a palm tree that was left in the first case of fly-tipping that occurred two weeks ago.

Group scout leader Mr Tozer said: “The palm tree, which we have now planted as we realised it wasn’t dead yet, really is the key to catching whoever did this.

“Not many people have palm trees, so if someone had one removed from their garden recently we’d like them to ask the people that got rid of it where they took it.

“If people ask these questions, we might be able to stop this happening to our hut once and for all.”

Councillor Varsha Parmar said: “The Scout motto is “Be Prepared”, but nobody should be prepared to deal with this disgraceful behaviour alone.

"The council is there for our residents and we will seek to prosecute anyone caught flytipping in our borough."

To report fly tipping on public land, visit www.harrow.gov.uk/flytipping