Bucks: Wardens to hand out fines in fly-tipping clamp down

That’s the claim from the council’s logistics boss David Martin, who suggested the county’s wardens will be doing “rather more” in the future.

Speaking at a meeting where the issue of fining fly-tippers was discussed, he said: “Going forward, we are revamping the entire parking service across the whole county.

READ MORE: Fine for couple caught fly-tipping on camera

“We have a number of Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs).

“Going forward the plan is for those CEOs to do rather more than ticket vehicles.

“One of them will be on-the-spot enforcement and fines for all sorts of things: spitting, littering, throwing things out of car windows, things like that.”

This comes after Buckinghamshire Council introduced maximum £400 fines for fly-tippers who are caught dumping their waste in April.

Councillor Bill Chapple, who heads up the council’s environmental work, said throughout the coronavirus lockdown more than 40 fly-tippers were caught by the authority.

READ MORE: Man fined thousands for fly-tipping after cafe refurb

However, only five of the perpetrators were Buckinghamshire residents with the majority being from Slough.

Since August 1 2020, the council has convicted 10 fly-tipping offenders who have incurred fines and costs of £17,500.

Cllr Chapple said: “We’ve got to understand this is a criminal act.

“The vast majority of what we have in this county is people coming in from outside, dumping it somewhere else from where they live, and most of it is from commercial [sectors].”

He continued: “I think it is an absolute disgrace.

“I saw a release of a video for a pop group where they drove along the roads throwing rubbish out of the car.

“We don’t need to dramatise fly-tipping.

“We need to make sure everybody has a conscience and they say ‘I’m going to take this home and put it in the rubbish where it should be.’”

According to data from Buckinghamshire Council, fly-tipping has been on the rise across the county from 2013 onwards, despite a small drop in recorded levels in 2019.

READ MORE: Fridge dumped in fly-tipping frenzy

More than half of all waste fly-tipped across Bucks is brought in from outside the county boundary, with around 60 per cent of this rubbish being dumped by ‘commercial carriers.’

The council says it has seen “significant increases” of fly-tipping during the coronavirus crisis, a trend that matches the national picture.

Despite household recycling centres re-opening in May following lockdown closures, the authority says it has not seen a reduction in fly-tipping.

A report which triggered the fly-tipping discussion read: “We hope that resumption of visible enforcement will help bring behaviour patterns closer to the usual ones as soon as possible and that we can continue to implement wider fly-tipping reduction strategies.”

The issue was debated at a council meeting on Thursday, September 17.