Black Country and Staffordshire councils not using fly-tipping powers

Across the UK local authorities have collected £750,000 in fines from illegal waste dumping since new Government legislation was introduced in May 2016.

But more than two-fifths of England’s councils did not issue a single fine up until May this year, according to figures from a Freedom of Information request.

Those councils include Sandwell, Stafford Borough, Cannock Chase, Lichfield and South Staffordshire.

Wolverhampton Council issued nine fines totalling £4,044 over the period, while Dudley Council brought in £360 from three fines.

Walsall Council did not respond to the data request. The figures come despite the region being blighted by fly-tipping, with 32,569 reports of dumped waste in the West Midlands last year.

Some authorities have started to adopt the new law in recent months. They include Sandwell Council, which has issued 27 fines of £400 from the end of May this year.

Councillor Karen Shakespeare, Dudley Council’s environment chief, said the authority was always looking to use new enforcement powers to clampdown on the scourge of fly-tipping.

“It costs the council a fortune, and 60 per cent of it relates to household waste,” she said.

“We have fewer reported incidents than a lot of other surrounding councils, but it is still an issue we take extremely seriously.”

London boroughs made up most of the top 10 local authorities who had issued the most fixed penalties, with Westminster topping the responses, having handed out 787 fines and collected around £130,000 according to council estimates.

Across England, the number of fly-tipping incidents have risen for three years in a row, government figures show, with councils reporting 936,090 cases in 2015/2016, up four per cent on the previous year.

Clearing up fly-tipped rubbish cost councils almost £50 million in 2015/2016, while enforcement action cost nearly £17m.

Local Government Association environment spokesman Martin Tett said it was wrong that councils had to spend ‘vast amounts’ a year tackling the problem at a time when they continued to face significant funding pressures.

The move by the Government to allow councils to apply fixed penalty notices for small scale fly-tipping - in response to requests from town halls - had been a ‘big step in the right direction’ to help crackdown on fly-tippers, he said.

But he said councils may still feel prosecutions were the most effective course of action.

“When they take offenders to court, councils need a faster and more effective legal system which means fly-tippers are given hard-hitting fines for more serious offences.

“Local authorities should also be able to recoup all prosecution costs, rather than be left out of pocket.”