Flytipping incidents rise by 40% in Coventry - but only 3% are prosecuted
New rubbish disposal schemes could help to alleviate the issue
Flytipping has gone up by 40 per cent in Coventry while only three per cent of cases resulted in enforcement or prosecution, the city council heard as it pledged to ‘go harder and heavier’ to catch the culprits.
Cllr John McNicholas, the Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Cohesion, has set “cleaner neighbourhoods and visible local enforcement” as one of his key priorities for the city this year.
A report considered by the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee this week said: “Residents should see a more visible enforcement presence, better focus on hotspot locations, CCTV solutions and clearer accountability for local environmental issues.”
It will include the rollout of a ward-based enforcement model including compliance officers, neighbourhood support officers and targeted cameras to catch offenders.
Cllr Frank Beechey (Reform, Wyken) told the committee: “There has been a significant increase in flytipping. When you look at the data of the past 10 years, there was obviously a big blip with Covid. However, we are still around 40 per cent higher than pre-Covid.
“Now, when we challenged this, the answer we were given is it’s because more people are reporting it, so it looks like there is more data. I don’t buy that. We need to look deeper into the data.
“In terms of enforcement, I believe something like three per cent of the cases went to enforcement or went to prosecution. That is a ridiculously low number. It’s not very good, is it?”
Council leader Cllr George Duggins (Lab, Longford) said: “Over the years, we’ve done quite a bit to effectively ensure that we do address flytipping. We took a decision a couple of years ago that fines and cautions would be raised from £200 to £1,000. You can’t, unfortunately, fine yourself out of this problem but what you can do is fine them more than we were.”
He said one of the priorities he had set this year with the council’s chief executive is to “go heavier and harder” with prosecution around flytipping.
He added: “There are spots in my ward, and in every ward, where flytipping just reoccurs and reoccurs. We need to find a way for our constituents feeling they won’t be intimidated when they actually come forward with information, which is evidence that will enable us to take the action we want.”
Cllr McNicholas said: “Working with local communities is extremely important. In terms of flytipping, if we know who these people are, we will prosecute. So I want anybody and everybody to help us deal with the matter. “
He said CCTV would be a critical part of the crackdown and if there was information from ward councillors and residents on where hotspots were, they could ensure there were cameras in those areas.
The council’s new ‘Tip to You’ service – which brings bulky waste collection directly to specific areas of the city – could also help ease the problem, he said.
Cllr Amirjit Kaur (Lab, Upper Stoke) said there were repeated flytipping problems in the same key spots in her own ward, where she had reported five cases just this week.
“People think it’s easier just to flytip and if you put CCTV, they’ll find another spot where there isn’t a camera and flytip there,” she said. Cllr Kaur added that at least one other council area offered £100 vouchers for people to report flytipping and wondered if Coventry could consider something similar.
Cllr Mattie Heaven (Cons, Wainbody) asked if frustrations over booking arrangements to visit local tips, especially by phone, along with an increase in skip hire prices, had meant people were more inclined to dump larger items illegally.
Cllr Matt Greenhalgh (Green, St Michael’s) said that in his ward, education and language barriers were big issues. He said: “There’s a constant transient population so maybe you could have something like a new resident pack for people, that would be beneficial.
“They don’t have cars, and they don’t know what they’re doing. We stopped a group of people who were walking to a skip they’d seen down the road because they assumed that was just somewhere they could dispose of rubbish. That’s partly an education issue, but without pedestrian access to the tip and without anywhere local for people to drop things off, I think we’re sort of setting ourselves up to fail.”
He asked for permanent regular points where people could dump rubbish. But Cllr McNicholas said previous attempts to have local tips had caused an “uproar” in areas like Wood End so the council would first need the support of the local community.