Charging Doncaster residents to have old fridges collected is 'false economy,' claims councillor

While DMBC (Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council) requests a payment of £32 to collect fridges - other councils do not charge.

Some Doncaster councillors have described the charge as a ‘false economy’ because it costs officers more to deploy staff to clear them from roadsides.

Speaking at a council meeting, Adwick and Carcroft councillor, David Hughes said: “There’s a £32 charge for the council to come and collect fridges and freezers that people don’t want anymore.

“Ever since that charge has come in, there’s been a hell of a lot more of them dumped across the borough and it must be costing the council a fortune to pick them up.

“Many people can’t afford £32 to get rid of a fridge - it’s a false economy in my opinion.

“Surely it’s about time we scrap the charge and picked them up free like we used to do.

Rossington councillor, Mick Cooper said a large number of fridges had been dumped near the old council depot backing onto Elmfield Park.

Bosses said councils who didn’t charge still had a problem with dumped fridges and the size of fly-tipping operations were ‘getting bigger and bigger’ which led officers to believe larger criminal commercial operators were to blame.

Stats show 2,133 incidents of fly-tipping were reported to the council between October and December 2019.

Christian Foster, head of strategy and performance at Doncaster Council, said: “There are some councils that don’t charge but they’ve actually still got a significant issue around fridge freezers being dumped.

“This leads to a question of do we not charge or do we charge? It should be more around communication and enforcement and greater penalties for people who do dump these types of items.

“We have CCTV and a lot of community networks and it’s about using all our assets to try and catch people doing this.

Lee Garrett, head of highways at DMBC added: “Although the stats haven’t gone up, what’s happening is the size of the fly-tips is getting much bigger. Not just fridges but all sorts of things and this points to larger operations.”