Doncaster sees another fly-tipping surge as council reacts with new specialist teams

Latest figures show that the fly-tipping has risen by 34 per cent. From October to December 2020, there were 2,822 reports of fly-tipping but this increased to 3,799 incidents during January and March 2021.

Although more waste was cleared between January and March than in the previous three months, stats show workers cleared 42 per cent of incidents within seven days compared to 61 per cent.

Council bosses said they have brought in additional vehicles and extra dedicated staff to tackle fly-tipping across the borough and added they are confident that the situation will improve.

Bosses also said that two additional enforcement officers joined the team with a sole focus on urban, back alley fly tipping – both as enforcement and an ‘education and awareness’ role.

Documents show that the dedicated fly-tipping and waste team have gathered evidence supporting 175 fly-tipping investigations, 102 of which relate to the work that the two new enforcement officers have been doing in the back alleys.

Letters under caution have been sent to those individuals whose waste was found.The outcome of investigations so far has resulted in 13 written warning notices and 3 fixed penalty notices issued.

Sennette Wroot, senior policy and insight manager at DMBC, said: “The initial focus of the fly-tipping and litter team has been to address the significant back-log of jobs.

“This prioritisation of outstanding works plus the considerable increase in fly tip levels has contributed to this reduced level of performance.

“Nationally there is very strong evidence that the levels of waste and litter in public spaces has increased considerably during the lockdown periods, and this reflects the experience in Doncaster as well as in neighbouring councils such as Barnsley and Rotherham who have both confirmed very similar issues to those in Doncaster.

“The additional resources have only been in place for one month of quarter four and time has been needed to embed these new arrangements. Moving forward, we are confident of an increase in performance.”

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