New £400 fines set to tackle blight of fly tipping

Councillors will discuss the report at the council’s Environment Scrutiny Committee on 28 June.
 
The report recommends that the council adopts the maximum FPN of £400 for people caught fly tipping with a reduced sum of £160 if the fine is paid within ten days.
 
In 2014-15, there were 1,056 reports of fly tipping in Cambridge that cost taxpayers an estimated £76,000 to clear up. In that same period, councils across the UK spent around £50million cleaning up 900,000 incidents of fly tipping.
 
At the moment, small scale fly tippers have to be taken to court to be prosecuted and fined, with councils often unable to recover all of the money it cost to bring the prosecution in the first place.
 
Under the new system, introduced nationally as part of changes to the Environmental Protection Act 1990, councils will be able to issue fines themselves, saving taxpayers’ money.
 
The council already uses FPNs as an alternative to prosecution when dealing with other environmental crimes including litter, dog fouling, illegal advertising and abandoned vehicles.
 
Money raised from the fly tipping FPNs would be put back into services relating to tackling fly tipping, litter and dog fouling.
 
Cllr Peter Roberts, Executive Councillor for Environment and Waste, said: “Most people can’t understand why anyone would think it’s in any way acceptable to fly tip, but sadly some still do it and it costs taxpayers big sums of money to put right.

“Changes to the law mean we can now issue fixed penalty notices for small scale fly tipping and the hope is that this will deter people from doing the wrong thing with their waste.
 
“Fly tippers who choose to ignore the rules that the rest of us abide by should have to pay the price for their anti-social, criminal behaviour.
 
“In Cambridge, it’s not all about fines as we do a lot of work in schools and the community to show people what they should be doing. We’re privileged to live in a beautiful city and that’s how we want to keep it.”
 
Cllr Roberts will decide on 28 June whether the new FPNs for the enforcement of small scale fly tipping offences should be introduced and whether the maximum £400 fine and discount for early payment should be set.
 

* The government’s Environment Agency has produced guidance on The Unauthorised Deposit of Waste (Fixed Penalties) Regulations, 2016, which defines small scale fly tipping as: “deposits of non-hazardous waste ranging from a more than a bin bag (approximately 100 litres) to volumes of waste less than 500 litres/0.5 m3 (‘a car boot’)” and can include like items such as pieces of broken furniture, old televisions and mattresses.  
 
 Reports presented to council committees are available on the council’s website: http://democracy.cambridge.gov.uk/ieDocHome.aspx