Fly-tipper’s car is crushed as council gets tough on dumping rubbish
A car used by a fly-tipper to dump rubbish across Walsall has been destroyed as council bosses warned criminals they are coming for their vehicles.
Walsall Council last week crushed the first car involved in offences since vowing to get tougher on people committing environmental crimes in the borough.
The Vauxhall Zafira was one of three vehicles seized in February which were believed to be involved in up to six offences over a three week period which saw 140 black bags full of rubbish dumped.
At least two of the incidents, committed at notorious fly-tipping hot spot Rayboulds Bridge involved the Zafira.
Council leader Mike Bird said cleaning up environmental crime incidents such as fly-tipping costs the authority around £750,000 per year and he vowed they would put more resources into catching more perpetrators.
Between April 2020 and May this year, the authority recorded 4,133 incidents of fly-tipping alone which cost an estimated £301,129 to clean up.
In recent years, the council has introduced a string of measures to try to tackle the problems including increasing fines to the maximum limits and setting up ‘Walsall’s Most Wanted’ which offers rewards for information leading to culprits being caught.
In 2017, serial fly-tipper Jason Humpage was sentenced to six months in prison after being caught on camera dumping waste on Back Lane in Aldridge.
In the past 12 months, five vehicles have been seized in total.
Councillor Bird said: “This gives the message that we’re not going to stand by and let people use vehicles for criminal activity – in this case fly-tipping.
“It is great news for me to see a vehicle off the road, crushed and not being able to do that fly-tipping any more.
“Fly-tipping is a major issue, not just for us but for councils across the country.
“It’s costing Walsall Council approximately £750,000 per year to clear up rubbish people want to dispose of without any thought of how that’s going to go from where they’ve left it.
“We’ve got our most wanted website, we have crushed cars and we have seen a man imprisoned for fly-tipping and I rejoice at that.
“This hits deep in the heart of the person who has lost their vehicle. Somebody said to me, ‘this could be their only form of transport’. My answer to that is ‘do I care? No.’ It’s off the streets and that’s what matters.
“I’ll make sure we put resources into it to make it even more of an issue.
“The more we can get people off the road with no MOTs, no insurance and no tax and more importantly involved in criminal activity such as fly-tipping.
My message to them is ‘we will find you, we will fine you and then we will seize your vehicle and we will crush it’.”
People are urged to report fly-tipping incidents by emailing evidence to flytipping@walsall.gov.uk or via the council’s website to help the authority secure more convictions.
