Agenda item

D. Austin presented the report.  He first gave the highlights which included improvement dealing with flytipping. Lots of activity in Enforcement Activity and the new Dog PSPO approved by cabinet last Tuesday.

Cllr Riddick asked about 6.3 – prosecution pending regarding defendant who didn’t turn up and warrants for his arrest have been issued – what is the current situation.

D. Austin explained that it is ongoing.

Cllr Riddick then asked about fly tipping in Rucklers Lane, which Cllr Anderson confirmed he had also reported.

D. Austin said that he was not aware of any evidence with this.

Cllr Anderson said that Nicola Loebendon assured him that the tip was being investigated and would be cleared at the end of the investigation. 

A question was asked regarding how many cameras we have available to deal with fly tips and how often are they moved.

D. Austin explained that we have to go to Magistrates Court for approval to use these covert cameras, we have 6 and 2 or 3 are needed to capture angles at a site.

Cllr Timmis asked about fly tipping on private land and whether the Council was looking at enforcing fly tipping on private land and at the side of the road as it is often difficult to establish whose responsibility it is.

D. Austin replied that there is a new protocol being developed with the Highways Committee involving 10 districts in Herts and the County Council have agreed to provide clarity around those type of incidents – and whose responsibility it is. He said that to the best of his knowledge we are not using Community Protection Notices for the prosecution of fly tipping. There is a pilot scheme as part of the County wide scrap fly tipping campaign with some private land owners helping them with these types of issues and he will speak to Duncan Jones who heads this up and provide the Committee with more information.

Cllr Birnie asked what lone working devices as detailed in 4.4 are, and if the costs would be detailed in Q4.

D. Austin said that Russell Ham and his team reviewed the Lone Working Policy and looked at devices that those working alone can use – the technology will flag an alarm if there are any issues with someone’s safety or if they have a problem while working alone as we have a duty of care towards them as employees, so we have just rolled out these new devices as part of that work stream. There will be an update, including the costs in Q4.

Cllr Hicks said that he knew a fly tip has to be investigated before removal – but existing fly tips attract others to dump rubbish and he wondered if there was a way to utilise cameras to capture new offenders.

D. Austin responded that the cameras are used in fly tipping ‘hotspots’  - the hotspots have to be identified in terms of the number and types of fly tipping that happen in the particular area as justification for them, there is nothing to stop us within that hiding a camera within an existing fly tip as part of that strategy. We are looking at the ration between the number of fly tips we deal with which is over 100 a month and how many we actually find evidence in.

Cllr Riddick enquired what happened if there was an obvious contaminate like asbestos – does this give an opportunity to do something more quickly.

D. Austin replied that when something of that nature occurs our enforcement officers are trained in the handling of hazardous materials. He added that it is a difficult area but hopefully with the work of the Herts Waste Partnership the situation will improve.

The Report was approved.