100+ fly tipping incidents per month in St Helens – and council tax payers foot the bill

15 March 2015

100+ fly tipping incidents per month in St Helens – and council tax payers foot the bill

St Helens Green Party is calling for a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to fly-tipping after uncovering the staggering scale of the problem in the borough.

Latest Department of Environment (Defra) figures reveal that St Helens Council received 1,215 reports of fly tipping in the year 2013/14 – an average of 100 incidents per month.

The council incurred clean-up and associated administrative costs of more than £185,000, yet failed to issue a single fixed penalty – let alone secure a prosecution.

Francis Williams of St Helens Green Party says:

“I’ve been talking to residents across the town centre ward in recent weeks and the message is coming through loud and clear: ‘do something about fly tipping!’. 

“Decent people shouldn’t have to put up with it – and they certainly shouldn’t have to fork out for it to be shifted either.   

“The council cannot keep pleading poverty whilst at the same time turning a blind eye to what is a very serious issue. If they cleaned up more quickly and investigated properly our neighbourhoods would look better and the culprits forced to foot the bill.”  

Last December the council introduced charges to remove some bulky household items such as settees, fence panels and mattresses in a bid to ‘balance the books’ – a move critics claimed would lead to even more fly tipping.

Fly tipping photo

Francis Williams adds:

“We haven’t got the figures for 2014/15 yet, so the jury is still out on whether the introduction of the £25 three-item charge has made things even worse.  

“But from what I’ve seen and from what residents are telling me, the situation certainly isn’t improving. It's diabolical.”

St Helens Green Party believes that many fly tipping incidents go unrecorded and urges all residents to report all incidents online at sthelens.gov.uk , by telephone on 01744 6767898, via email to contactcentre@sthelens.gov.uk or via Twitter to @sthelenscouncil






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