ORGANISED criminals are attracted to fly-tipping because of low fines and poor enforcement, according to the Neighbourhood Watch Network.
CEO John Hayward-Cripps responded to a report that says just 0.23% of fly-tippers are prosecuted.
He said: “The number of people that have been prosecuted for fly-tipping is woefully low in the UK and has been for some time, I think it’s one of those awful situations where it’s difficult to catch people fly-tipping.
“The prosecutions have been tiny and also the punishments are low. The maximum fine is £50,000, that is almost never applied to groups that have been fly-tipping. It’s usually much much lower than that.
“A lot of the kind of organised crime and people involved in this factor potential fines into what they’re doing.”
In an interview with Stephen Dixon and Isabel Webster on GB News, he said local authorities are only interested in prosecuting very serious cases.
“We know council budgets are massively pushed at the moment,” he said. “And I’m sure there are some difficult decisions being made by councils about whether they continue to fund things like social care, or young people and the other things…we know that they’re closing libraries and various other things.
“It’s really expensive and quite difficult to catch fly-tippers, because obviously fly-tippers tend to do it in the middle of the night when there’s nobody around. It is a difficult thing to catch.
“There are things that can be done, but I think neighbourhood watches, we know in some areas, like in Northampton and Milton Keynes Neighbourhood Watch has formed a group that works really closely with the council and the police. And there’s been a massive reduction in crime there, including fly-tipping.”
Mr Hayward-Cripps also said that greater reporting by the public of illegally dumped rubbish would help, adding in his GB News interview: “I wonder how many times you’ve reported fly-tipping, because I bet you’ve seen it lots of times.
“It’s a huge problem. We’ve recently done our annual crime and community survey, which is not just for members of Neighbourhood Watch, but also for members of the general public, and 73% of respondents were more concerned about fly-tipping than any other crime in their area.
“And that’s a response from over 23,000 people across the UK. It is a huge problem that people are genuinely really worried about.”
