New measures to tackle fly-tipping in county
01 Dec 2020 ARCHIVED (over 3 months old) - view latest news
A pilot project is getting underway to tackle fly-tipping in the county – which could be rolled out to other areas.
As well as blighting beauty spots and posing a health hazard to people and wildlife, fly-tipping is also the cause of huge costs for local authorities and taxpayers.
National statistics show that in 2018/19, local authorities in England dealt with over a million fly-tipping incidents, an increase of 8% from the 998,000 reported the previous year.
This year the council launched its Fly Tipping Reduction Action plan to tackle the problem in the county, leading to a 19% reduction in fly tipping compared to the same period last year (April to October). However, that still meant 2,866 tips have been dealt with over the past six months.
The plan included increasing education and enforcement capacity, weeks of multi-agency activity in hotspot areas, working with residents and increased enforcement officer patrols.
Now the council’s planning to introduce a new pilot scheme in Ashington to help residents who have limited waste storage options by constructing six bin compound areas where larger general waste and recycling containers will be stored for people to use.
Council Leader Glen Sanderson, who has responsibility for Local Services, explained: “Unfortunately lockdown led to a significant increase in fly tipping nationally with some areas reporting a 300% increase during this time.
“Thankfully we bucked this trend and were amongst the first authorities in the country to reopen our household waste sites post lockdown, but fly tipping is still a real issue which causes us a lot of problems and can be a real blight in both urban and rural areas.
“As part of our programme to tackle flytipping, we’re planning to investment in the Hirst area of Ashington – which will involve implementing a large-scale pilot scheme to install communal bin storage areas in-between Maple and Chestnut Streets.
“This will enable residents in these areas to access large communal bins, which will improve the storage of waste which is currently left out on the street for collection in sacks, provide greater opportunities for recycling, improve the overall cleanliness of the area and make it even more unacceptable to fly tip.
“We will soon be submitting planning applications for the compounds, which if approved, will then be installed early in 2021. Once installed we will monitor the impact of the communal bins in this trial over the next 12 months and, if successful in reducing fly-tipping and improving the environmental standards, will then look to phase the roll-out across the rest of the area.”
Ashington Central Councillor Tommy Wilson said: "I've been trying for a long time to get something down to The Hirst to try and help tidy the area up so I'm over the moon with this and hopefully there will be more to come."