Council hopes to 'eradicate' fly-tipping

A Lincolnshire council has said it wants to see fly-tipping "eradicated" after recording a decline in reported incidents.

Boston Borough Council said progress had been made with a combination of fines, an education programme and a scheme to track down the owners of abandoned waste.

Figures show the number of times rubbish was dumped illegally fell by 10 per cent in the course of a year.

Councillor Callum Butler, who is in charge of tackling fly-tipping, said: "It's good it's going in the right direction, but it's nowhere near where we'd like it to be."

The council has waged a long-running war on fly-tipping. In 2021, fixed-penalty fines were doubled to £400, before being increased again to £1,000 at the beginning of this year.

In the first quarter of 2023, the council responded to 1,439 fly-tipping incidents, the highest rate in Lincolnshire last year, according to figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

However, during the same period this year, the figure fell to 1,286.

A total of 237 fixed penalty notices were issued for fly-tipping over the past 12 months, the council said.

Boston has also trialled removing litter bins to stop persistent dumping around them. And last week, it announced plans for a community skip service to help people without cars dispose of large items.

Mr Butler, the portfolio holder for environment at the council, said his hope of eradicating fly-tipping was "probably wishful thinking" because no matter "how much you educate or how many signs you put up, some people are never going to get the message".

An education programme had "helped in certain areas", he added, but "obviously we've still got more work to do".

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