Fly-tipping: Penalties

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) for securing this debate and giving us all a chance to raise this issue on behalf of our constituents.

Nationally, locating, managing and removing waste left by fly-tipping costs the UK economy about £600 million a year. Besides the financial costs, there is the impact it has on neighbourhoods and streets in places like Crewe. Across the Cheshire East area in 2019, there were 3,791 incidents of fly-tipping. That led to the taxpayer bearing the costs of clearing up almost 3,000 incidents. In the first half of 2020, there had already been almost 2,000 further incidents of fly-tipping.

Sadly, more than half of all the incidents across Cheshire East have taken place in Crewe in my constituency. The overwhelming majority of Crewe’s residents are proud of their town. They want to play their part in keeping their street clean and decent, and one they can be proud of. Sadly, all it takes is a small number of people to decide that they are going to put themselves and what makes their life easier first, and everyone suffers as a result. The people of Crewe have not taken this problem lying down. The local campaign group Crewe Residents Against Fly-Tipping has more than 1,700 members, and they diligently raise awareness of this problem and repeatedly report fly-tipping to the council.

That brings me to the issue of prosecution, which is just as important as the level of fine and making the most of the maximum fines available. Thanks to the local democracy reporting of the Crewe Chronicle and Chester Live, we now know that, despite those thousands of instances of fly-tipping, there were only two prosecutions for fly-tipping in Cheshire East last year. That is simply unacceptable. There is little value in having fines or raising the minimum level if prosecutions are not taking place.

I have spoken to residents who feel that they have provided enough evidence to the council when reporting fly-tipping, and again and again nothing gets done. In the long run, that leads to their not bothering to report it anymore, because they do not see the point. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline how we can ensure that local councils take the zero-tolerance approach to this issue that our residents want to see and that is fair to those who are investing their time in ensuring that their local area is one to be proud of.