Council costs rise as fly-tipping incidents in Whitburn triple in year
huge surge in fly-tipping has been reported in a West Lothian community, with concerns that the council is picking up the tab for rubbish cleared from private land.
The number of reports in and around the town of Whitburn and neighbouring village of Blackburn almost tripled over the final three months of 2023, compared with the same period in the year before.
The council is only legally obliged to deal with fly-tipping on publicly owned land. Landowners have to pay to have waste uplifted from their own.
At a recent council committee meeting, deputy council leader and Whitburn Labour councillor Kirsteen Sullivan asked Eirwen Hopwood, a parks and woodland manager, “Do we know how much is commercial?”
The manager said she had no breakdown beyond the figures presented but revealed that the number of reports had shot up to 95 in OctoberDecember from 37 in the last three months of 2022. “It’s a significant increase,” she said.
The cost of uplift rose to £4,733 for the 2023 third quarter, up from £2,503 in the same time-frame for 2022.
But overall, the total tonA nage of fly-tipping lifted across West Lothian barely changed between the two years – 66.34 tonnes in October to December 2023 compared with 66 tonnes in the last three months of 2022.
Cllr Sullivan said: “The 2023 figure for the ward is dreadful. It would be interesting to know if some of it is related to dumping on private land. This is a bugbear of mine. There’s so much flytipping on private land and the council ends up picking up the costs.”
She said there was a particular issue at Heartlands, a large development mostly of housing but with a small commercial centre on the western fringe of Whitburn.
“Council services have been working closely not only with West Lothian Litter Pickers, but with some of the businesses out there to encourage them to put out more litter bins, but we have vast swathes of private land where there’s stuff being dumped all the time,” added Cllr Sullivan.
Cllr Mary Dickson highlighted the fly-tipping at a layby near Heartlands which was regularly tidied by volunteers, only to be dumped on again when cleared. She asked if the surge was related to changes in opening times or the booking system introduced at the recycling centres last year. “I’m told there’s no correlation,” replied the manager.