Huge £54m bill for fly-tipping clean-up
Thousands of cases of fly-tipping were dealt with by councils across the West Midlands, costing taxpayers millions of pounds in clear up costs, latest figures reveal.
Thousands of cases of fly-tipping were dealt with by councils across the West Midlands, costing taxpayers millions of pounds in clear up costs, latest figures reveal.
Although fly-tipping across the region dropped by five per cent in 2008/09, and local authorities took action in more than 14,000 cases, the statistics show that thousands of offenders are still getting away with dumping waste illegally. More than half of the cases involved household waste, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
In Dudley, there were 930 incidents in the year to September, resulting in 22 prosecutions. All but one were successful, and 77 people were fined.
A total of 4,179 incidents were recorded by Sandwell Council, resulting in one prosecution, 248 warning letters and three fixed penalty notices being issued.
The illegal dumping of waste was reported on 4,769 occasions to Wolverhampton City Council who won all eight of its court cases against culprits, while 1,097 incidents were reported to Walsall Council.
Elsewhere, 532 incidents were logged in South Staffordshire, 580 in Stafford, 582 in Cannock Chase, 460 in Lichfield, 447 in Bridgnorth and 430 in Wyre Forest.
Fly-tipping across England dropped to 1.16 million incidents – down 9.3 per cent from 1.28 million reports in 2007/08.
The estimated cost of clearing the illegally dumped waste to local authorities was a total of £54.9 million.
Local authorities increased their enforcement actions in 2008/09 by 3.9 per cent to more than 520,000, including 2,000 prosecutions, but it means hundreds of thousands of people are getting away with it.
Environment Minister Huw Irranca-Davies said: "Fly-tipping is unacceptable and a stain on our environment, which costs local authorities in England tens of millions of pounds each year that could be spent on local services. All waste can and should be disposed of responsibly. I am pleased to see a reduction of over 9 per cent in incidents, but 1.16 million is still too many.
"Local authorities, government and people need to play their part in stopping it." He said Defra and other agencies would continue to work to tackle the problem.
