Agenda item

D Austin provided an update on fly tipping.  Following the presentation, members were asked if they had any questions.

Cllr Hicks asked if the waste left around the recycling areas was the result of fly tipping, the bins being full, or there not being bins for the waste concerned.

D Austin replied it was a mixture.  Some people might turn up with a large bag of textiles that’s too big for the hatch and just leave it by the bin.  Others might come along with completely inappropriate items, thinking it’s allright to leave for examples a chair, TV or fridge.  Within that there were people genuinely coming along with items that may not fit, particularly at the sites that weren’t overflowing.  There had been some problems with the servicing of the textile banks, but he understood these had been resolved, so there shouldn’t be any issues with overflowing bins. 

Cllr Hicks said that if a bin was regularly overflowing it needed to be emptied more often.

Cllr Timmis reported that a part of her ward had been heavily contaminated with fly tipping.  25 fly tips had been left in a country lane near Flamstead called Chad Lane.  A very large fly tip had currently been left just off the A5 by the sewage works.  On her way to the meeting, she had seen 3 black bin bags full of rubbish just chucked at the side of the road.  She appreciated that people will dump things next to bins if bins were too full, but the fly tippers menacing her ward were a different type of fly tipper and were not the type that could easily be caught.  She welcomed attempts to tackle the problem by questioning people, but these were not the type of people that would be about during the day, as they fly tip by night.  Many of the fly tippers came from London, and most of the tipped material was builders rubbish. 

Cllr Timmis felt that two issues had been omitted from the presentation.  The £1 million cost of dealing with and removing fly tips applied solely to public land, and excluded the amount of money that landowners/farmers unfairly have to spend when fly tips have been left on their land.  The fly tipping was not their fault, and efforts to stop the problem were not their responsibility, so they should be entitled to some sort of help.  Also the Police didn’t have the time or the numbers of people to keep an eye out, although the rural Police do have a good idea of some of the local offenders.  It would be difficult to do anything about fly tipping whilst offenders were so confident they would not be caught, and it was difficult for people to go to the tips that were available, because there were so many restrictions.  It was no wonder people just didn’t bother going, so it would be better to spend the £1 million on opening the tips more.

D Austin responded that it was correct that the majority of fly tipping was being done by a small minority of people, fly tipping was a criminal activity and he was aware of a case where people trying to stop fly tipping had been confronted by a firearm.  Serious criminals commit the majority of the fly tipping across the county and wider afield, and there were no easy answers.  But, the Council was continuing to work as much as it could to do something about it with the Police and other stakeholders. 

D Austin advised that there had been a lot of research into things like charging for garden waste and household waste site opening hours and any link with fly tipping.  Currently there was no proven scientific evidential link in that the majority of people were law abiding and would return if the tip was closed or queue if there was a wait, rather than fly tip.  Fly tipping was not a natural behaviour that would come to them.  Most of the fly tips the Council deals with involve skip loads of rubbish from small construction projects.  He was happy to work with Nicola’s enforcement team to try other new initiatives if they became aware of anything that could be tried.

Cllr Timmis said that Chris Briancon had given a presentation to the Watling Group.  The Group had suggested providing signs that were a little more aggressive than simply saying ‘Please take your rubbish home’, and he was helping with that.  The Group also suggested that anyone putting in a planning application should receive a notice telling them they are responsible for the disposal of any rubbish, and that anyone having construction work should be given a little marker to put in their rubbish, so that if the rubbish is illegally dumped, it can be traced. 

Cllr Wyatt-Lowe asked about the enforcement fixed penalty notice data.  Broxbourne, Hertsmere, Stevenage and Watford were all issuing far more FPN’s than Dacorum.  She wanted to know if this was because the problem was worse in these areas or the councils were doing something that we would like to emulate.

D Austin replied that Dacorum issued 10 FPNs in 2017/2018, and some had issued more and others less.  He didn’t think the problem was particularly worse in the areas mentioned, but getting to the reasons behind the differences would require more research.  Meanwhile, new powers had been made available, so that in the case of minor fly tips, the Council could issue a lower FPN, rather than be unable to prosecute, as that would be disproportionate.  He expected the figure to rise for 2018/19.

Cllr Wyatt-Lowe asked about the anti-fly tipping publicity leaflet saying one should report fly tips to Hertfordshire County Council, but not saying anything about reporting fly tips to Dacorum Borough Council.  Recently she had received notifications thanking her for reporting incidences of fly tipping.  One issue had been resolved, but she had not been able to get to the bottom of what was going on with the others.  She felt that if the public should report fly tips to the County Council, there was a need to publicise this.  Reports to the Dacorum call centre could be routed to county, but if there was a publicity leaflet saying the public should go through the county website, that should be the process.

Cllr Riddick said that the collection centres had attracted a number of problems, especially the centre located in the Sainsburys car park at Apsley.  Coral Watson of Planning Enforcement had had a discussion with the management of the store, because most people were just leaving things by the containers, and rats were present.  The latter significantly raised the health & safety risk, given the proximity to a food supermarket.  The store resolved the immediate problem, but one feared it would recur.

Cllr Riddick enquired if the Council was proceeding with a prosecution for fly tipping on Boxmoor Trust land.  He praised the detective work put into in identifying the perpetrators, who didn’t turn up for the PACE interview, and asked for an update.

D Austin mentioned that the Sainsburys store at Apsley does not have any DBC containers, and that that collection centre is purely operated by Sainsburys as their own recycling operation.  The Council used to have containers there, but some supermarkets chose to do their own thing with recycling. 

D Austin confirmed Chris Briancon had given the fly tipping perpetrator a second and final opportunity to appear for interview.  If the perpetrator fails to present for interview again, the Council will start a formal prosecution with the evidence it already has.

Cllr Matthews wanted to follow up on Cllr Hick’s point about the recycling centres.  He advised that the St Johns Well Lane recycling bottle bank in Berkhamsted was frequently full to overflowing and asked if it would be possible to display signage with contact and location details for the public to report full bins.

Cllr Matthews also reported the problems with people leaving piles of stuff outside charity shops.  The front door of the Red Cross shop in Berkhamsted was frequently obscured on Monday mornings.  He assumed there was some leeway with charity shops that if it was reported usually it was not going to be a big issue. 

Cllr Matthews welcomed the anti fly tipping campaign and asked if the other councils pay to use the intellectual property that had been generated for the campaign.

D Austin said he would need to check the signage on the recycling centres, as it was a good idea.  There used to be signage, and if it is absent, then some would be sorted.

D Austin confirmed the Council would take a proportionate approach and wouldn’t do anything that was insensitive or unreasonable or disproportionate to charity shops.

D Austin said that the Council took a proportion relating to the campaign, but it was lead by Duncan Jones on behalf of the Herts Waste Partnership, and he made connections through the National Association of Waste Disposal Officers.  They were charged, but he was not sure about the intellectual property in terms of the design.  He said he could find out from Duncan Jones.  Cllr Riddick wanted to know if DBC received any of this money.

The chairman advised that the leading charity shop in his ward had already left a sign in its window asking people not to leave items out of opening hours as this was fly tipping.

Cllr Ransley thanked D Austin for the interesting presentation.  She asked if anything could be done about the small amounts of fly tipping, not commercial waste, left in water courses, for example broken bicycles and supermarket trolleys.

D Austin confirmed this was the landowner’s responsibility, and the Council would work with stakeholders like the Canals and Rivers Trust.  If it was the Council’s land, then the Council would look at what could be done.  The Council has done clearances, and has specific powers to enforce the retrieval of items such as supermarket trolleys.  Often the Council just has to roll up its sleeves and deal with it.  If there were any specific locations where the Council could do a one off blitz, then the Council would look into it.

The chairman said that in terms of trying to tackle fly tipping and gaining the evidence, one of the issues that had kept cropping up over the years had been the affordability of covert cameras.  Obviously not every fly tipper was going to use a vehicle with proper licence plates, and one couldn’t camera the whole Borough.  But he felt the fines raised by successful prosecutions could raise the money to pay for the cameras, so that one is effectively investing in the solution at much reduced eventual cost.

D Austin advised that the Council could use covert cameras more, but it would have to go to the magistrates court to get RIPA authorisations, and it would need to justify need and demonstrate it has exhausted all other avenues.  The Council has to show how it will minimise the risk of collateral intrusion, but he felt the balance could go a bit more towards new cameras.  There were problems with using cameras, most notably the quality and range of the picture, there being a need to use more than one camera at each location to obtain the required details.  But, he felt the Council could use covert cameras more as an important part of the jigsaw, so long as one is careful with their use.

Cllr Riddick enquired how much the cameras cost.  D Austin said he believed the infra-red cameras which had been bought were between £4k and £5k for 4 or 5 cameras.  Cllr Riddick was disappointed with the high cost, as he had just bought a trial camera, albeit without infra-red, for £100.  The chairman advised that one had to pay the premium amount to get good enough quality images to support prosecutions.

Cllr Sutton felt there was a need to lobby the County Council about the licensing of commercial vehicles to use the tips, because whilst it was good and worked well, there was a fine line between what is meant by ‘commercial’ and ‘private’.  He had visited the tip in Hemel Hempstead using a small van, which is used as a private vehicle, to leave only two bags of rubbish, but was sent home.  On returning with a normal car, he was allowed to use the recycling centre.  This was frustrating as others in his position would have just dumped the rubbish by the side of the road.  The operators at the site needed to be a bit more flexible.  D Austin was happy to feed this back to his peers at Hertford.

In connection with the advice to the public to report fly tipping to the County Council, Cllr Hicks asked if this related to fly tipping on the roads or all fly tipping, as some of the fly tipping could be on council verges or estates or private properties.  D Austin said he would have to clarify this with colleagues before responding.  Ultimately, if a fly tip was on the highway then it clearly was the responsibility of the highways authority, and there were different responsibilities around different landowners.

Cllr Hicks asked if the Council could offer charity shops an official shop window notice asking people not to leave items outside their shops as it is fly tipping and otherwise items of value could be stolen.  Particularly in London, people were regularly going through items left outside these shops and removing anything of value. 

Cllr Timmis commented on contradictions in the anti fly tipping campaign leaflet.  Initially the leaflet says if you see fly tipping in action, you should call the Police on 999 and report it as a crime in progress.  Then, the leaflet says you should report fly tipping at hertfordshire.gov.uk/fly tipping.  Finally, the leaflet says that all fly tipping should be reported online to the local council regardless of whether you saw it in progress or have just discovered it.  This was quite confusing.  D Austin noted the comments.

Cllr Howard said she was involved in a topic group about knife crime and one of the things that was mentioned was that people are taking knives from the bags left outside charity shops.  This was another reason to resolve fly tipping outside charity shops.

Cllr Marshall said that the anti fly tipping leaflet issued by the fly tipping group was generic for the whole county, so it wasn’t possible to include Dacorum’s details on it.  Further to the reporting of fly tipping, she advised members to try out the reporting facility on Dacorum’s website.  If anyone saw fly tipping in action, then they needed to call the Police on 999, and this website tool provided an easy way to report it thereafter.

Cllr Marshall appreciated the frustration, but the key to the term ‘household’ was that it did not relate to commercial waste, as commercial operations have their own facilities.  Some contractors may not like to pay for the disposal of the waste collected in their business, even though in some cases they charge their customers for it.  But there were waste sites for businesses in the area, and it should not be difficult for those businesses in terms of convenience to use those waste sites instead of the household waste sites.

The chairman thanked D Austin for the presentation and answering questions.  It was proposed, seconded and agreed that:

‘The Committee welcomes and supports the work of the Herts Waste Partnership fly tipping team; hopes Dacorum can continue to play its role in combating the problem; and looks forward to increased enforcement as a key part of that effort.’