Stockport council has only issued TWO fly-tipping fines since last May, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. The eyebrow-raising statistic - bosses expect more than 3,000 fly-tipping reports this municipal year - was revealed by Labour councillor David Meller at a recent full council meeting.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service understands both were fixed penalty notices, bringing in £120 and £250 respectively. The town hall spent more than £5,000 of Proceeds of Crime funding on enforcement cameras back in 2019.
Coun Meller told the meeting that, while there had been ‘much fanfare’ about the Stockport Spring Clean campaign, street cleaning was a ‘whole year endeavour'.And given reports earlier in the meeting of successfully bringing rogue traders to book, he was ‘surprised’ by the figures on fly-tipping action.
Addressing Lib Dem cabinet member Coun Grace Baynham, he added: “So why is this the case and why are the cameras we purchased to catch and prosecute offenders not being fully utilised?”
Coun Baynham said she had been raising the issue of increasing the number of prosecutions for fly-tipping. “It is sometimes down to a judgement,” she said.
“The fines for fly-tipping are fairly low and a prosecution can be very costly, so that does have to be kept in mind. It’s not to say that we won’t prosecute, but that’s the consideration and we are looking to prosecute particularly where we know it’s a repeat offender or it’s a particular concern.”
However Coun Baynham said rates of fly-tipping in the borough had been better than the council had thought last May. The council is expecting 3,149 reports of fly-tipping by the end of the municipal year - just over its target of 3,000.
That is an improvement on 2020/21 and 2021/22, which saw 4250 and 3337 reports respectively.
“Hopefully we will continue to make progress on our targets there,” said Coun Baynham.
Stockport council had recorded 2,381 fly-tipping reports by the end of the 2022 calendar year.
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