More than £200,000 of tax payers’ money was spent clearing away fly-tipping last year in Telford & Wrekin, it was revealed today.
Telford & Wrekin Council was called to remove almost 4,000 fly-tips in the borough between April 2007 and April 2008.
Figures obtained by the Shropshire Star show the number of incidents of illegally-dumped rubbish was down by 1,000 on the previous financial year but fly-tipping continues to be a major problem in Telford.
Council bosses insist they are fighting to tackle the problem through education and enforcement.
Councillor Steve Bentley, cabinet member for the environment, said: “Last year, Telford & Wrekin Council removed 3,879 fly-tips in the borough. This was 1,000 fewer reported fly-tips than the year before and 3,000 fewer than 2005/06.
“Our contract with Telford and Wrekin Services, which removes fly-tips for the council, makes it hard to calculate a precise figure for removing fly-tips.
“However using a national cost calculated by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we estimate the cost was more than £211,000 last year alone.
“This is equivalent to each household in the borough paying £3 a year just to clear up fly tips - all because a small minority think it’s acceptable to dispose of rubbish this way.”
14 Comments
this is a disgrace - they should make the money back in fines for littering. Also me thinks the bill wouldnt be so high if they cleared fly tips up in house rather that contracted it out hey??
Well the way I see it is this, with all the savings they have made by dropping everybody down to fortnightly refuse collections they can use that money instead can’t they?
Perhaps had they not made it so hard for people to get rid of their rubbish then people wouldn’t be so inclined to fly tip.
John, bi-weekly bin emptying with an alternating recycling collection is more costly im sure than just emptying the bins. Im sure if you were to try then you could become more efficient.
I agree with Marcus, the money shoudl be made back in fines with more effort made to catch teh idiots that do this.
Another reason why we must not use supermarket carrier bags.
Puzzling because if you can be bothered to fly tip then why not just take the rubbish to the community tip & recycling centre. There isnt much you cannot dump there free of charge.
Bigger fines and using CCTV to record hotspots would sort it out.
Why would people Flytip when its free to dispose of waste at the tips in Telford and Wrekin??
Pure laziness.
Also we should fine youths a lot more for throwing away fast food rubbish
maybe 200 pounds each time someone is found littering
Phil misses the point ref. fly tipping. Yes we can dispose of rubbish and take recycling to various official places around the Borough. However, I cannot take my garden waste or rubbish to the tip in a van or use a trailer without having to apply for a permit. It’s typical bureaucracy: if one tries to do things properly, the council puts barriers in one’s way. As a consequence, I take my van to a spot near the Wrekin to dump my radioactive waste from my garden.
Good point Phil! Its a very common sight in Telford to see job dodgers throwing rubbish out of the window of a moving car. Massive fines, crushed cars and hard labour on community projects is whats needed here.
big matty are you mad? how can doing half the work be more expensive you fool - do the maths, they save money on it
H. St. John Peasbody
I can’t see your issue most garden waste you can compost in back garden and if you need a permit - apply for one and wait for it to arrive.
In the end everyone pays for the flytippers in increased council tax
I can’t see the problem in driving to a skip compared to driving an dumping waste in countryside surely you must drive same distance to either
Phil - it’s 2008 and we expect high quality service, not bureaucracy. Drag yourself out of the 70s!
H. St. John Peasbody - When have we ever had high quality service from any council regardless of whether its the 70’s,80’s, 90’s or 2000’s????
Councils will never change - if they did it would be akin to Turkeys voting for Christmas
Desh Patel I’m clearly not mad! Everywhere I’m aware of now empties the grey wheelie bin one week and the following week the green bins and recyclable rubbish is taken.
I’m sure that the workload for the recycling collections is slightly increased due to the picking up of the additional red boxes. On top of this there has been significant infrastructure improvements made which I’m sure took large financial investment.
So before you call me mad I ask that you think about what you type as that was hardly fair.
I also think we should pay for the amount of rubbish we create. It would encourage the consumer to think about packaging and recycling. The wise would save money and the fools would blame someone else as hey are no intelligent enough to take responsibility.
i think its SCANDALOUS that the tax payer picks up the tab for this dumping because most of it is small man with a van businesses not householders who despite recent changes can still get rid of their waste legitimately, its the businesses who dump waste who should be regulated more and forced like us residents to recycle more waste less and obey the law with our waste