Council to ask for trade fees at recycling centres to be waived due to fly-tipping increase
A Staffordshire council will ask for fees to be waived at recycling centres for traders after a rise in fly-tipping in recent months.
Cannock Chase District Council will write to Staffordshire County Council asking them to consider waiving all charges for the disposal of trade waste at the recycling centres for three months.
Councillor Christine Martin, health and wellbeing portfolio leader, raised the motion at a meeting on Wednesday, and said between April and June this year there were 186 incidents of fly-tipping compared to 90 in the same period last year.
The motion says: "This will encourage the use of the sites and discourage illegal fly-tipping. This period will also allow for information to be gathered re: businesses that need to dispose of trade waste and the data used for analysis in later investigations in concert with the Environment Agency and Environmental Health, should the problems start to re-occur.
"Businesses could also be approached as to their views. For example, are the charges too high or the opening hours not long enough, is there a presumption that the illegal fly-tipping is a concomitant factor to illegal trade waste services anyway?”
Councillor Martin added: "It's a danger to public health."
Concerns were raised by some councillors that traders from outside Cannock Chase could visit the recycling centres.
But the motion was carried after a vote.
