Call for campaign to reduce fly-tipping in Central Bedfordshire as council pledges to 'wage war' against it

Although Central Bedfordshire Council’s executive has promised to ‘wage war’ on the issue, Labour Dunstable North councillor Matt Brennan has suggested nothing new is planned.

Having presented a motion on the subject to full council in September, it was referred back to CBC’s sustainable communities overview and scrutiny committee.

Councillor Brennan called on CBC “to understand the disruption to neighbourhoods caused by relentless fly-tipping and to publish all relevant data annually, with the number of fixed penalty notices issued matched against reports submitted, and the number of assets seized and crushed”.

He asked the council “to explore instigating a fly-tipping report reward scheme to help reduce environmental crime, to monitor recent changes to accessing tidy tips and assess the impact on incidents and reports of fly-tipping, and to analyse having an official flytipping reduction campaign to raise awareness and increase deterrence”.

Labour Arlesey and Fairfield councillor Nick Andrews read an email on behalf of councillor Brennan, saying: “I understand the desire to push away from my motion on the basis it won’t make any difference, and everything is covered in this report.

“The executive released a press release about what its been doing and to suggest a war is being waged on fly-tipping, but I feel there was nothing new in this.

“I’m asking the committee to decide if there was any merit in my suggestions. Had I not submitted my motion there may not have been such a significant section on fly-tipping in the household waste recycling report, which is quite beneficial.”

Conservative Dunstable West councillor Nigel Young, who chairs the committee, said: “Some of his suggestions in the motion would require an answer from the portfolio holder, supported by CBC officers.

“We refer it to councillor Tracey Wye to go back on the specifics in the motion, which weren’t covered by the debate on waste recycling.

“Councillor Brennan said in the email he felt his motion has been superseded. But I don’t think all his questions were answered. We can forward it to the executive member for sustainability and climate resilience to answer those (remaining) questions.”

CBC’s assistant director leisure, libraries and countryside Jill Dickinson explained fly-tipping statistics are always monitored on public land, adding: “We’re not changing our approach around the number of incidents.

“Some of those might be duplicates. What we use is the verified information, so the number of actual cases. It wasn’t private or public land before and now it’s something else. The booking system isn’t a barrier to recycling waste.”

More than 260,000 bookings have been made already, with 99 per cent of these online, said a report to the committee.

Independent Potton councillor Wye warned: “Everyone’s making more waste, which is flooding through our houses and back to local authorities.

“We’re not unusual in that respect. Some of it goes in the black bin, but it all ends up in the same place at Covanta. It doesn’t matter which route the residual waste goes.”