West Lindsey: Council spend thousands a year on fly tipping

In 2014/15 the council dealt with 1,042 fly tipping incidents which cost a total of £55,125.75 and results in one prosecution.

These figures are up from the year before with 674 incidents in 2013/14 and a cost of £35,654.60.

But the prosecutions were higher with four.

West Lindsey District Councillor and chair of the prosperous communities committee, Coun Owen Bierley, said: “Fly tipping is a particularly harmful crime, affecting the environment, residents’ lives and businesses’ reputations in West Lindsey.

“We are committed to clearing such instances as and when they happen but would urge anyone who is experiencing difficulties getting rid of waste to get in touch to see what we can do before taking illegal action and blighting the countryside, towns and villages in the area.

“People love living and working in the district and we want to keep it that way, we’d also recommend that people report instances of tipping as soon as they see them as the sooner we know about it, the sooner we can arrange for it to be cleared.

“Our teams work incredibly hard and have received excellent feedback from residents and businesses that we’ve engaged with on the issue.”

And a Freedom of Information request revealed that £607,849.27 was spent on street cleansing which includes litter, fly tipping and dog fouling collected and this equalled 882.25 tonnage throughout the whole of West Lindsey.

Over the last five years costs have actually reduced but the tonnage has increased.

In 2013/14 the cost was £716,518.56 with 727.49 tonnage collected.

There was a large jumpof tonnage collected from 286.60 in 2011/12 to 852.60 in 2012/13.

But the cost in 2011/12 was £699,348.20.

The council said this was mainly due to the introduction of a more accurate way of recording actual tonnages tipped.

Last year West Lindsey District Council won a Silver Award and were recognised as providing a Five Star Service at the Clean Britain Awards.