Fly-tipping clean up costs Rotherham Council £370,000 per year

Fly-tipping costs Rotherham Council an estimated £370,000 per year, new figures show.
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The cost of clearing up fly-tipping the borough in 2020/21 is estimated at around £175,000, alongside an additional £67,509 in disposal costs.

Investigating fly tipping accounts for an estimated 14 per cent of the overall Regulation and Enforcement budget which equates to around £115,000 per year.

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A report to be presented to RMBC’s improving lives select commission on February 1 states: “It is reasonable therefore to estimate that the total costof dealing with fly tipping in the borough is around £370,000 per year.”

In 2017, 4,344 reports of fly-tipping were made to Rotherham Council, which had increased to 5,977 in 2021.

The reports adds that the number of fly-tips removed ‘proactively’ by the council is up five-fold since 2017, which is down to ‘improvements in the working practices within the service’.

As a result, the number of reports made by the public has decreased by three percent since 2017.

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There has also been a 20 per cent increase in the number of cases requiring investigation by the council’s regulation and enforcement department, which is due to a number of factors including ‘evidential opportunities’ and increased use of CCTV.

The number of enforcements doled out by RMBC is also on the up – the authority issued 34 fixed penalty notices for ‘large’ fly tipping in 2021, compared to six in 2017.

The council has recently reviewed how fly tipping is tackled across the borough, focusing on identifying fly-tipping hotpots, reviewing resources and equipment, and have undertaken ‘a specific operation to target waste carriers’.