In the last 12 months fly-tipped rubbish collected in the borough could have filled seven Olympic-size swimming pools

dumped furniture at a roadside — Photo by Ben Neale on Unsplash

Barnet Council has simplified reporting fly-tipping and are calling on residents to help stamp out the illegal depositing of waste on the borough’s streets.

According to the Council, in the last 12 months have removed enough rubbish from flytips to fill seven Olympic-size swimming pools. The annual cost of cleaning up is in excess of £500,000.

The Council has simplified ways to report illegal waste dumping, with a simple weblink to access a reporting portal at www.barnet.gov.uk/reportit.

Councillor Alan Schneiderman, Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, said: “Fly-tips are a source of misery. Not only are they a public health issue, they are also eyesores and it can be frankly depressing for people to have to walk past them on their streets. Every year the council spends more than £500,000 cleaning them up – money which could be better spent on other services for residents.”

The council has recently introduced a new way of working that sees reports registered and passed to a team of community safety officers to investigate. Using the full range of tools at our disposal including our significantly expanded CCTV network, they will identify anything that will help the council to work out who was responsible for the fly tip, before a Street Scene crew returns later to get the site cleared. Offenders face fines of £200, rising to £400 for a second offence and potential prosecution for anyone who offends multiple times.

The initiative forms part of the Council’s ‘Caring for Our Places’ campaign. Said Councillor Alan Schneiderman: “Having started a new approach in late July, we are already seeing the impact on the number of fly tips leading to identification of offenders and we are starting to take action against them. Caring for Our Places is not just the name of a campaign, but is what we do here in Barnet. We will not stand for our streets and public places being blighted by unsightly fly tips and will take action wherever we can to drive those who seek to destroy Barnet’s beauty out of the borough. Work with us to end fly tipping in Barnet.”

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