Rural fight for harsher fly-tipping penalties

RURAL lobbyists have pledged to petition for greater penalties for fly-tippers after more than a million cases were recorded on public land in only 12 months.

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) said the problem of waste being dumped illegally is placing a huge financial burden on local authorities.

The CLA’s director for the North, Dorothy Fairburn, called on householders to ensure that rubbish collected over the Christmas period is disposed of legally, as the festive season often brings about an increase in the number of cases.

“Christmas is a time when households can have an increased amount of waste with boxes, old and broken toys and appliances, and an increase in general waste as people host friends and family,” she said.

“In many cases there can often be changes in local authority bin collection days too which can lead to an accumulation of waste over the festive period.”

Government statistics have revealed that there were more than a million fly-tipping incidents in 2018-19 on public land – with nearly two-thirds of those involving household waste.

However, the CLA, which has 30,000 members across rural England and Wales, warned that the statistics are the just the tip of the iceberg as they do not include incidents of fly-tipping on private land – which the landowner has to clear at their own personal cost or risk prosecution themselves.

According to the CLA, nearly two-thirds of farmers have been a victim of fly-tipping, with more than half admitting that the illegal dumping of rubbish is a significant issue in their local area.

Ms Fairburn said: “In 2020, the CLA will continue to call for greater penalties for those people that are caught fly-tipping and changes to an unjust system whereby private landowners are having to pick up the bill for waste that is illegally dumped on their land.”