Agenda item

David Beaver (Head of Waste Management), Hannah Allard (Waste Business Development Manager) and Natalie Liddiard (Intelligence and Standards Manager) were in attendance for this item.

1.    Mr Whiting (Cabinet Member for Planning, Highways, Transport and Waste) introduced the report that set out the current and future action plans to address fly tipping in Kent. Mrs Whiting informed the Committee that the Leader had announced at County Council additional funding to help reduce the level of fly tipping in the county through increased enforcement and improved communications between partner agencies with the aim to better inform both householders and businesses of their duty of care and responsibilities relating to waste disposal.

2.    Prior to discussion, Mrs Allard informed Members that where the report mentioned VOSA (Vehicle and Operations Service Agency), this should have read DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency). Mrs Allard addressed the key areas of the report that looked at the current actions including Op Assist that was carried out in five districts and led to a number of successful prosecutions, future actions to combat fly tipping and the measures that were being developed including social media campaigns, Magistrates training and the use of covert equipment to improve awareness and increase the number of successful prosecutions.

3.    The officers and Cabinet Member responded to Comments and questions as follows:

(a)  Mrs Allard agreed to circulate to Members the number of prosecutions

(b)  Mrs Liddiard said that Op Assist was piloted within the East of the County, however, following its success, KCC hoped to work with district and borough councils, Kent Police and other partners to deliver more days of action across the rest of the county. KCC used an intelligence led approach to increase the success rate and impact of the ‘days of action’ and with the £250,000 commitment from KCC, resources could be deployed more effectively within the district and borough councils and by the Police to improve enforcement and reduce fly tipping.

(c)   Mr Whiting (Cabinet Member for Planning, Highways, Transport and Waste) informed Members that the Police and Crime Commissioner had doubled the Rural Police Task Force and that Kent Police continued to tackle fly tipping as a priority and work with KCC on Op Assist. Mr Whiting acknowledged that KCC needed to publicise the results of the fly tipping operations and asked officers to cascade the information.

(d)  The officers agreed to send regular updates to Members of the Council to ensure that the correct information was cascaded to residents.

(e)  Mr Beaver assured Members that the intelligence equipment was used in hotspots and provided targeted intelligence to the Police. A trial of the new covert equipment was due to be carried out across four key sites and use of the technology was advancing successfully.

(f)    Mrs Allard informed Members that new legislation imposed a duty of care on households to check that their waste was being disposed of by an authorised waste carrier. Households were advised to contact the Environment Agency to ensure appropriate checks had been carried out and that a form of receipt be provided by the waste collection service to the Household as proof that all checks had been carried out by the Household to the best of their knowledge to avoid prosecution if that waste was to be incorrectly disposed of.

(g)  The Chairman asked that regular reports be presented to the Committee and thanked officers for their continued efforts in tackling fly tipping.

4.    RESOLVED that the report be noted.