Landowners will be told to clear fly-tipping, says council

MERTHYR Tydfil council has revealed the new approach it is taking to tackle fly-tipping on private land.

The council is now planning to write to owners of private land where there is fly-tipping advising them to remove the waste within a certain time period.

Following discussions involving the cabinet member and chief officer for neighbourhood services it was decided that the council should change the process of how it addresses fly-tipping on private land.

Previously the council would investigate all incidents of fly-tipping, even those on private land, but only remove waste on council owned land.

The council will still continue to take any investigations forward in relation to information found.

There were 959 fewer reported incidents of fly-tipping in Merthyr Tydfil in 2019-2020 compared to 2018-2019 but there was an increase in the number of days taken to remove waste.

In 2018-19 it took an average of 0.72 days and in 2019-20 it took an average 1.59 days.

Speaking at the council’s governance and performance scrutiny committee, Councillor Clive Jones said the new policy on private land was really a move forward and that he had been trying to get something done about it for a long time. He said it was very frustrating when constituents were complaining about fly-tipping and litter on unregistered land or private land and he tries to explain to them that the council can do very little about it.

He said: “You get a blank look on their faces. So this is really, in my view, a step forward in the right direction and I’d like to see that implemented sooner rather than later.”

Cllr David Hughes, cabinet member for neighbourhood services, said the reason they are looking at this was because of an issue in Cllr Jones’ ward where people were fly-tipping on unregistered land. He said because it was not registered land no one would touch it.

Cllr Hughes said: “We’ve got a duty of care to all residents of Merthyr so we must tackle this.”

He said one thing they will be looking at is potentially registering unregistered land to the council.

Cllr Jones said: “There are goodness knows how many addresses throughout the county borough which are owned by private occupiers... I’m glad to see that this matter is now going to be tackled.”