Shock as landowners get fly-tipping funds
Councillor says communities should have got more
A special fund set up by Perth and Kinross Council to assist communities struggling to keep their areas clear of illegally dumped waste has been branded a flop after it emerged much of the money ended up going to private landowners.
The local authority announced last summer it had arranged for £20,000 to be set aside and shared between community groups looking for some financial assistance to either get rid of waste already dumped on their patch or seal off areas to stop it happening again.
A spokesperson said at the time the temporary fund would “empower communities to take a stand against fly-tipping” and it was anticipated most awards would be between £500 and £1000.
But Carse of Gowrie councillor Alasdair Bailey has since established half of the fund ended up being claimed by private landowners he believes have plenty money to protect their property from the problem themselves.
Councillor Bailey said he was aware of one instance in his ward where the owners of the Errol Park estate had been allowed to claim £1700 from the fund despite financial statements showing management of the estate had over £150,000 in the bank and held assets worth over £1.5 million less than a year-and-a-half ago.
He told the PA: “I want to see a reduction in fly-tipping as much as anyone does but I am shocked at how poorly money is being allocated to address the problem here in Perth and Kinross.
“The fly-tipping fund was announced with great fanfare about empowering communities to take a stand against fly-tipping yet the reality is that all of the money allocated has gone to the owners of large country estates to further improve their land. Not a single community organisation has been awarded funding.
“In the Carse of Gowrie, I raised concerns about the proposed award of £1700 to the owners of Errol Park Estate given that their most recent public accounts show that they had over £150,000 in the bank and total non-fixed assets in excess of £1.5 million.
“My concerns were ignored and I was surprised that other councillors wrote in support of the application.
“We’re talking the entire council tax for a band D property for a year here. I was shocked that such a sum was allocated to an estate owner who we can see from public record could easily afford to improve their land themselves if they so wished.
“The one upside of this scheme having proved a flop is that the remaining unallocated money (£10,000) has been allocated to a mobile camera with the hope of catching more fly-tippers in the act and gathering evidence that can help us to issue more fines.
“A second one of those cameras would have been a much wiser investment of the other money and would have sent a much louder signal that fly-tippers are not welcome in Perth and Kinross.
“Sadly, we have instead handed a significant chunk of taxpayer money to wealthy landowners at a time when we have kids struggling to get the right devices to make the most of remote learning.”
Perth and Kinross Council was approached for comment but had failed to do so before the PA went to press.