The funding comes as local authority elections loom in May and the Labour Party has made fly-tipping one of its campaign issues.
Labour has criticised the Conservative’s track record on fly-tipping. And, alongside the grants announcement, it was noted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that the Prime Minister had pledged to clamp down on the perpetrators of anti-social behaviour, including graffiti, fly-tipping and litter.
21 councils
A statement from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 8 April said 21 local authorities will benefit from the grants, with schemes such as roadside CCTV and social media campaigns in Plymouth and targeted surveillance at hotspot areas in Pendle included.
Other projects highlighted by the department are:
CCTV – portable CCTV cameras to patrol and capture footage across Northumberland
Barriers – anti-climb fencing to protect neighbourhood areas in Hyndburn, including community orchards and wildflower meadows
Better waste infrastructure – larger recycling bins in better locations in Mansfield to make sure the public have access to correct disposal approach
Sharing
Councils will have six months to roll out their initiatives, before sharing how they worked in practice with the aim of helping other councils to develop similar schemes.
Defra said that the grants announced on 8 April “will build on the successes of the first round of projects, which provided £450,000 to 11 councils last year”.
2022 projects
Last year’s projects included building new community gardens in fly-tipping hotspots in Thanet and introduction of CCTV with automatic number-plate recognition in Buckinghamshire.
In Durham, the county council introduced educational bin stickers, permanent signage and installed CCTV onto existing lighting columns. Thanks to these efforts, fly-tipping was cut by over 60%, the Defra statement reported.
Following the success of these initiatives, Defra said it has almost doubled the amount of funding available for councils this year for projects for the second round.
‘Cynical crime’
Commenting on the Easter funding announcement, Mrs Pow said: “Fly-tipping is a cynical crime which blights communities and the environment. Our first round of grants over the last year were a big success – which is why we are expanding this scheme to help more local authorities around the country take the fight to waste criminals.”
Belinda Snow, neighbourhood warden manager for Durham county council, said: “We are grateful that the funding became available from Defra, and the council was awarded £50,000 to tackle fly-tipping at known hotspots with the use of CCTV, signage and educational bin stickers.
“The funding enabled us to invest in our communities, resulting in cleaner streets and an overall positive response from residents. We monitored the intervention areas for three months after installation of CCTV and signage in comparison to the data three months before and we could see a 68.4% total reduction in fly-tipping incidents.”
Ms Snow added that the use of CCTV has also increased Durham’s ability to carry out enforcement action with one successful prosecution at one hotspot location and a fixed penalty notice at another.
Wider action
Highlighting other government activities around fly-tipping, Defra said that the second grant scheme “complements wider action we are taking to tackle fly-tipping and waste crime. We have consulted on reforming the waste carrier, broker, dealer regime, introducing mandatory digital waste tracking and preventing councils from charging for the disposal of DIY waste at local tips”.
The statement continued: “We are also developing a fly-tipping toolkit with National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group to help spread best practice among local authorities on tackling the issue.
“The Prime Minister pledged earlier this year to clamp down on perpetrators of anti-social behaviour. We are committed to delivering on this pledge, recently announcing more severe punishments for those who graffiti, litter or fly-tip, with fines of up to £500 and £1,000 as part of the Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan. The Plan will also introduce the publication of council league tables for fly-tipping, as well as extra ‘hotspot’ patrols and a trial ‘Immediate Justice’ scheme to deliver swift and visible punishments.”
The full list of funding recipients is:
- Spelthorne Borough Council
- Northumberland County Council
- Cambridge City Council-
- Hyndburn Borough Council
- Derby City Council
- Stockton on Tees Borough Council
- Waltham Forest
- Plymouth City Council
- Birmingham City Council
- Wyre Borough Council
- Herefordshire County Council
- Manchester City Council
- Calderdale Borough Council
- Bristol City Council
- Tamworth Borough Council
- Leeds City Council
- Mansfield District Council
- Staffordshire Moorlands District Council
- Rotherham Borough Council
- Pendle Borough Council
- Doncaster Borough Council
