Rochford Council is set to meet next week to discuss its new fly-tipping action plan, including an expansion of bulky waste collections and piloting a new environmental enforcement team. Fly-tipping – Waste dumped outside the gates to Ashingdon Primary Academy in March (Image: Julie Gooding)
Notable incidents this year in the district have seen fly-tipping outside the gates of Ashingdon Primary School on Fambridge Road in March, while a “bully-type” dog was found among a large pile of building materials dumped on the side of Mucking Hall Road in August.
The council currently spends more than £80,000 a year on clearing dumped rubbish and fly-tipping and, on average, two to three fly-tips are reported every day.
Since 2012, roughly 600 incidents have been reported per year.
Waste – Glass dumped on Mucking Hall Road (Image: Jo Palmer)
Chris Stanley, chairman of the environment and climate change committee, said: “We would like to cut down fly-tipping with this new policy, it’s a New Year and that is our aim.
“There are people out there who will fly tip, they have false number plates on their vehicles and its difficult to catch them.
“The reason we brought these new ideas to the forefront is to catch these people. When we catch them, we will give them the full force of the law.
“The enforcement team is a new directive, at this moment it’s in its early stages, it’s still in its infancy. It’s part of an effort of ours to crack down on fly-tipping, let’s wait and see how we will develop it, their duties will be discussed at the committee meeting.”
Another instance – A pile of TVs which were dumped on Mucking Hall Road in September (Image: Jo Palmer)
Chris Stanley (Image: Archive)
He added bulky waste collections help prevent fly-tipping and the council will discuss expanding their collections to other areas, pending a consultation with councillors to identify the areas of most need.
“We’ve had a significant amount of dumping in districts like Rawreth over the past eight months, and are looking to tackle this issue,” Mr Stanley said.
“We have disposal places where people can take their rubbish, fly-tipping is always a problem and we as a council try to keep it under control.”
Rochford Council’s environment and climate change committee will meet on Thursday to discuss the new plan.