Council fines for fly-tipping total £40,000 in one year (From Keighley News)
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Council fines for fly-tipping total £40,000 in one year
9:30am Monday 19th September 2011 in News By Keighley News reporter
Bradford Council is cracking down on fly-tipping in the district, receiving almost £40,000 in fines in a year from people caught illegally dumping their rubbish, new figures show.
The amount received by the authority is one of the highest in the country compared to other councils, with fly-tippers paying a total of £37,075, following 23 successful prosecutions.
However, the amount in fines received by Bradford Council is dwarfed by the amount it spent clearing up after fly-tippers – a total of £320,000 in a year for 8,626 instances of unlawful rubbish dumping.
The figures also show there were more than 520 enforcement actions untaken by the authority during the same period.
The Countryside Alliance, which published the figures, has called on the Government to help local authorities tackle the issue, which cost taxpayers more than £40 million between April 2010 and March 2011.
Earlier this year, Bradford Council saved £40,000 by scrapping its fly-tipping team, but pledged to continue to tackle the problem through its Neighbourhood Services team.
Brian244 says...
10:01am Thu 29 Sep 11
One very good example, some time ago I found one of the Councils Allotment tenants dumping household waste on Allotment land, I took pictures of him in the act and as Chairman of the Allotments Committee at that time insisted that he be given notice to quit his allotment plot as per the allotment agreement.
Unfortunately I was not aware at that time of the relationship between this tenant and some Council employees. Excuses were fast to appear as to why he should not be evicted, here are just three of the daftest reasons I have ever heard and were put to me in his defence. 1 He is a good tenant. 2 He pays his rent on time. 3 It was on a Sunday and he wouldn’t expect someone from the Council to be on the allotments. This person is still a tenant of the Council; don’t laugh though his rubbish is still there too.
Anyone found fly tipping should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Cllr Brian Morris