More than 2,300 cases of fly-tipping in Walsall over six months
More than 2,000 incidents of fly-tipping have cost Walsall Council over £220,000 in just six months, according to new figures.
For the financial year 2016/17, 5,009 incidents were recorded, costing the authority £426,098 and since the new financial year has started up until the end of September there has been 2,364 incidents at a cost of £221,787.
That works out at £33,666 per month – or more than £1,000 per day to the cash-strapped authority in that period.
Environment chiefs have said that the figures are a ‘major concern’ and the cost is putting increased strain on already tight budgets.
The council has various methods to battle fly-tipping in recent years including setting up covert cameras and launching awareness campaigns encouraging residents to report.
Now councillor Chris Jones, who is the authority's head of clean and green services, says a task force is being set up to look at clamping down on the problem.
Councillor Jones said: "This is a serious problem for us, it is one of our biggest issues.
"The sad fact is that it is something that is totally avoidable.
"We all have to live with the cuts, regardless of which side you are on politically we all have to get on with it because they aren't going away.
"What doesn't help is when we are spending around £400,000 a year on cleaning up mess that has just been left mindlessly.
"That is money that could be spent on frontline staff.
"Progress is underway to get a task force together to specifically look at this issue because we can see the figures aren't going down, already this year it looks like we are likely to be spending more than last year."
Councillor Jones said that figures show smaller scale fly-tipping is decreasing while larger scale fly-tipping is on the up.
He also called on members of the public to use tips in the borough rather than paying people to take rubbish away for them.
He said: "The fact that we are seeing more and more cases of larger scale fly-tipping points towards the rise of these people who say they will take rubbish to a tip for a charge but actually just dump it anywhere.
"We all know this happens and the public have a responsibility here too, they should not be using these people."
