Burnley Council steps up penalty notices for flytipping

Burnley Council has defended its use of fixed penalty notices for flytipping after research revealed it issued just 0.17% of fines compared to incidents in 2019/20.
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Data produced by OnlineMortgageAdvisor.co.uk showed that Burnley issued just five Fixed Penalty Notices out of 2,831 reported fly-tipping incidents - 0.17% of the total.

Fly-tipping can be defined as an ‘illegal deposit of any waste onto land that does not have a licence to accept it’.

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OnlineMortgageAdvisor.co.uk sourced the Government official fly-tipping incidents and actions 2019/20 data and focused on the percentage of incidents resulting in fixed penalty notices (FPN) specifically for fly-tipping.

Rubbish previously flytipped off Bacup Road, Cliviger, last yearRubbish previously flytipped off Bacup Road, Cliviger, last year
Rubbish previously flytipped off Bacup Road, Cliviger, last year

Despite the low number of FPNs issued by Burnley Council in 2019/20, the figure still placed the council at 199th out of 316 local authorities across the country.

And latest figures suggest Burnley Council appears to have stepped up its enforcement action in more recent months.

A Burnley Council spokesman said: "Since last August we have issued 142 fixed penalty notices for flytipping and household waste duty of care offences as a result of developing new strategies to tackle the issue of dumped rubbish withing the borough.

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"The council will investigate why waste has been found in an unauthorised place and then take the appropriate action that is allowed by national legislation.

"However, issuing a FPN isn't as simple as finding waste with a name or address within it. We have to have sufficient evidence to prove that a person has actually deposited the waste. This is where residents can help us tackle the problem and catch those responsible for spoiling our communities.

"The problem is caused by those responsible for the fly-tipping; we will always do what we can to catch them if possible."

People can report flytipping, and provide much-needed evidence on who is responsible, online at www.burnley.gov.uk/flytipping, by emailing [email protected] or by phoning 01282 425011.