Agenda item

An update on incidents of fly tipping across East Devon will be provided at the meeting.

The Chairman confirmed that Cllrs Tom Wright and Marcus Hartnell, as Portfolio Holder and Deputy, had been invited to the meeting but were unable to attend.  Cllr Rylance had particularly wanted this issue raised but was also unable to attend the meeting. Andrew Hancock confirmed that he and Cllr Wright had met Cllr Rylance to discuss the issues that she had raised.

The Service Lead for Streetscene, Andrew Hancock, was in attendance and had provided a number of reports which summarised the situation in East Devon and provided comparisons to the national average, as well as enforcement action taken by EDDC.

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Andrew Hancock stated that Fly tipping in East Devon is not a large-scale issue compared to the national picture, however, the Council takes pro-active steps to tackle it. The graphs circulated with the agenda papers show that fly tipping levels are low (when compared to the national average. Between 2013 – 2017, the national average was 2700 incidents, whilst EDDC for the same period was 533.), and the overall trend is decreasing. A slight decrease can be seen in both graphs provided.

Andrew explained that the public report fly tips via the Council’s Customer Service Centre. It is then logged onto the LAGAN system for action by the REACT team.

EDDC cleans up fly tips on average within 3 days. Streetscene has a team of five operatives (REACT) who are responsible for all fast road litter picking and fly tipping clearance. They bag any evidence they find and forward it to the Environmental Health team who then investigate and take the appropriate action. The REACT team spends around 40% of its time on fly tipping, costing EDDC approximately £55k p.a.’

Whenever EDDC is able to it takes enforcement action where evidence leads to the perpetrator. The waste offences spreadsheet show how many FPNs have been issued for this. EDDC has taken 75 enforcement actions since 2015, equating roughly to 5%.

If caught, perpetrators are charged for the cost of removing the fly tip. Unfortunately, there is usually little evidence, since fly tips tend to occur in isolated places.  Covert surveillance via RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) is limited, and the ability of Councils to take more enforcement actions are limited legally, for example, by decriminalisation of offences such as littering.

Andrew stated that social media is used to seek the public’s assistance with reporting fly tips, and successful prosecutions resulting in fines result in EDDC issuing a press release. Environmental Health undertake the investigations and enforcement actions.

Cllr Hughes asked about abandoned vehicles which were reported to Devon County Council but required action by district councils.  Andrew confirmed that this was not a big issue for EDDC with approximately 200 incidents each year. Once again, the powers for a Council to deal with them were restrictive. A vehicle is often not abandoned and then EDDC is unable to intervene and it becomes a highways authority (Devon County Council) problem. A vehicle can be determined as being abandoned if it is not taxed, in which case the DVLA will support actions taken.

In the case of vehicles being abandoned and removed, they would be scrapped if the value is under £1000, or if more than this amount they would be stored temporarily before a contractor scraps them. Costs cannot be recovered from previous owners because they often dispute ownership, and costs to use bailiffs by EDDC would not be covered by the actual costs recovered.

The Chairman went on to refer to the Re-use credit scheme administered by Devon County Council (DCC), on behalf of The Devon Authorities Strategic Waste Committee (DASWAC) which had been running for 22 years.  DCC were currently consulting on a number of future options, which included; scrapping the scheme altogether; continuing to run it as it is presently, or continuing to run it in a different way. Cllr Wright is the Vice Chairman of DASWAC currently.

In response to questions from committee members, Andrew stated that if the scheme was scrapped, it was unlikely to increase fly tipping in East Devon due to the different demographics of people involved. If removal charges were scrapped, Andrew stated that this would be unlikely to reduce fly tipping, since the majority of fly tipping was commercially based or related to organised crime. However, he said that the scheme was beneficial.

Andrew reminded members that fly tipping was a crime, and that monies from Fixed Penalty Notices or fines went back into the budget of EDDC and would help to offset the costs of collection.

RESOLVED

That the Scrutiny Committee

1)    Thanks Andrew Hancock for his presentation and the work of the team involved in dealing with fly tipping

2)      Responds to DCC on their Consultation about the Re-use Credit Scheme, recognising the positive benefits of the scheme and supporting its continuation. (The consultation period runs from 25^th February until 5^th April).