Agenda and minutes

Items
No. Item

1.

Question from: County Councillor Gareth Ratcliffe Subject: Fly Tipping

 

Question From:

County Councillor Gareth Ratcliffe

Subject:

Fly Tipping

Question To:

County Councillor James Evans

Portfolio Holder for Economic Development Housing and Regulatory Services

 

Question:

I write to you in my capacity as chair of the Brecon Beacons National Park Authroity and ward member for Hay-on-Wye. Are you able to provide an update to all members within the Powys area on the number of fly tipping reports over the last couple of months? We are aware of increases in fly-tipping to the south of the National Park as well as in the Powys area over the introduction of the lock down due to covid19.

 

Also can you provide the process for reporting such events so that we can share with the public and community councils to ensure they are aware of the action that is being taken in cleaning up our countryside and in seeking to enforce against any one caught flytipping within the county?

 

Minutes:

Response by the Portfolio Holder:

 

Thank you for your question.  Please see below as requested the data we hold for flytipping in Powys which shows the total number of incidents actioned (investigated and/or cleared) in line with NRW statutory reporting requirements.  (It should be noted that this data is yet to be officially validated, audited and published by the Welsh Government and some incidents reported in late April may still be ongoing)

 

 

We have significantly increased our awareness and enforcement activities in recent years and this is starting to show some positive impacts with a significant decline in flytipping across the county in recent years. 

 

During the last two months there appears to be no discernible increase in flytipping, if anything when contrasted to the same period in 2019, we have seen a decrease, which suggests most people are following the advice to stay home and defer non-essential activity.  With more residents taking exercise in the countryside, it may be that there is a perception of more littering and flytipping.

 

There has been much media reporting of increased flytipping and making the connection with the closure of Council facilities.  Flytipping is of course an illegal activity to which most residents will not resort, but there may be unscrupulous operators who will take household waste for a fee and then flytip it in the countryside.

 

We are still investigating and clearing flytipping from relevant land, but there may be some delays whilst we focus staff resources on maintaining essential domestic waste collections during these unprecedented times.

 

We can all help by reporting incidents of fly tipping via our website https://en.powys.gov.uk/article/8023/Help-us-keep-Powys-clean and these reports are passed to our locally based Waste Awareness and Enforcement team and Environmental Protection Officers to action.   As well as removing waste from relevant land we have followed up on numerous reports in recent years with proactive enforcement including: warning letters, interviews under caution, statutory notices, fixed penalty notices and court prosecutions where appropriate.