CLA welcomes harsher fly-tipping fines

CLA welcomes harsher fly-tipping fines

The announcement of harsher fines for people caught fly tipping has been welcomed by the CLA in the North.

The new guidelines have been set out by the Sentencing Council, which said it wanted magistrates to make more use of the “highest levels of fines”.

Heavier fines may be handed out for all types of fly-tipping, "whether this is a company tipping a lorry-load of used tyres in a field or a householder dumping an old mattress in an alleyway" the council said.

The new guidelines will be used in courts from 1 July.

CLA North Regional Director Dorothy Fairburn said: “This is long overdue and is definitely a step in the right direction but it does not deal with the problems faced by landowners who have rubbish fly-tipped on their property.

“On average, it costs the landowner around £800 to clear up each incidence of non-toxic fly-tipped waste on their land. And there is the potential for landowners to be prosecuted purely because they have not removed waste tipped on their land.”

The CLA is lobbying government to create a new ticketing scheme that would enable landowners to take fly-tipped rubbish to their local tip free of charge.

Miss Fairburn added: “The CLA’s action plan to tackle environmental crime calls for the Government to ensure local authorities can accept fly-tipped waste without charge to landowners as well as an end to the prosecution of landowners who have waste dumped on their land and have to pay to remove it.

“We would like to see the creation of the right policy framework for local authorities to work with police forces on a zero-tolerance approach to the perpetrators.”

The CLA is seeking evidence of fly-tipping that has taken on private land in the north. Farmers and landowners should send photographs of the result, with details of date, location and any further information to: north@cla.org.uk once the crime has been reported to the police.