Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps National Highways is taking to coordinate with local authorities on managing (a) fly-tipping and (b) litter in places which overlap between special roads and trunk roads.

National Highways works closely with local authorities to tackle litter on the Strategic Road Network (SRN). National Highways has introduced litter partnership agreements to facilitate better coordination of litter clearing operations and has provided health and safety training to key local authority personnel to support their litter-clearing teams.

National Highways regularly engage with local authorities to help identify opportunities for local authority teams to access the network and address priority areas of concern for litter-picking and sweeping. Local authorities are able to utilise National Highways’ traffic management to schedule their own litter picks, helping to reduce costs for taxpayers and minimise disruption to road users. Although National Highways does not possess enforcement powers, in the event its CCTV operators notice illegal activity such as littering or fly tipping taking place on the SRN, evidence of that is also passed onto the local authorities responsible for prosecution.