A multi-agency clampdown against fly-tipping and other offences has this week seen police and council officials make their 31st seizure of a vehicle suspected of being used to illegally store or dump rubbish.
Police and council officials were conducting vehicle checks on the Purley Way this week to clamp down on fly-tipping and other offences
More than 30 officers from Croydon Council patrolled locations across the borough on Tuesday with counterparts from the Metropolitan Police, HM Revenue and Customs and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). The operation ranged from fly-tip patrols in Thornton Heath to vehicle spot checks in Purley Way.
Council officers impounded a Ford Transit parked on Pawsons Road in Thornton Heath. The van had no number plates and building waste and oil drums in the back.
The council will now search for the registered owner, and if they do not come forward the van will be crushed.
Meanwhile, council environmental enforcement officers, police officers and DVSA staff pulled over 40 vans and lorries on Purley Way in Waddon to check drivers had full licences and insurance, were not carrying waste which might be fly-tipped and that their vehicle was roadworthy.
One delivery driver’s vehicle was seized after DVSA officers found it had faulty brakes.
Part of the operation involved checks on 130 businesses to make sure they had the correct licence to dispose of business waste properly. Twenty-nine of these will now seek to increase their current waste contract with the council, while the rest had the correct contract for their business needs.
Stuart Collins: overseen six multi-agency operations against fly-tippers in 2017
The operation also led to six people being issued with £80 fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping, plus 11 received parking tickets. Leaflets were also handed to local businesses and residents about the council’s growing time-banded waste collection policy.
The joint operation is the sixth such event in 2017 as part of the council’s Don’t Mess With Croydon – Take Pride campaign, which combines enforcement with encouraging local volunteers to lead community clear-ups.
“This kind of operation is a good way for the council and our partners to clamp down on vehicles being driven illegally and to tackle fly-tippers who flout the rules,” said Stuart Collins, the council cabinet member for clean and green Croydon.
Since 2014, Croydon Council has more than doubled the number of staff – from 19 to 40 – dealing with reports of fly-tips and other street cleaning issues.
“I’m pleased our dedicated council officers have impounded their 31st van used for fly-tipping, as that makes it harder for criminals to blight our Croydon residents’ local environment,” Collins said.
To report a fly-tip in Croydon, call the council via 020 8726 6200 or email flytip@croydon.gov.uk.
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Glad that Croydon are attacking fly tipping in this way.
I reported a static, rubbish filled tipper parked for weeks in a front garden, and am pleased to say that the council and Cllr Collins took the case up. This was about 6 months ago, before the current initiative, and undoubtedly, had the van gone on the road, it would have been in breach of safety regs, as it had one back light.
Not totally sure of the outcome in my case, but I doubt whether the owners would have dared to take the rubbish out and fly tipped it, after the council “inspector called”. The vehicle has not reappeared , and my guess is that it has been scrapped. Let’s hope that the rubbish was s transferred to another vehicle and taken to a proper waste transfer station.
By the way, I heard a very annoying heavy handed broadcast on the radio around the same time from a senior person at the Environment Agency, who was repeating the mantra that “the householder seeking to get rid of the rubbish is responsible for ensuring that the rubbish removal contractor is properly licenced.” . Well, yes, sounds OK, but there was a nasty add-on to the effect that if the rubbish ended up being flytipped, the poor old householder could be prosecuted!
Come on! The person breaking the law is the flytipper. If the stereotypical “little old lady ” (or gentleman for that matter) even knows about the waste transportation regulations, the sort of people who do fly tipping are generally not known for their honesty or the veracity of their business statements. “Thanks Lady, that’ll be £150 . All our vehicles are properly licenced by the Environment Agency and Ministry of Transport and the Police and the Council. No need to worry, we take it to a licenced tip where they get rid of it”. Yeah, I can hear it now.
In my view, the law should be amended so that BY LAW, anyone offering to remove waste should have to give the customer a simple dated and timed ticket of guarantee in writing, stating the type and volume of rubbish, the customer name and address, the haulier and the destination site, which should of course be licenced to handle /transfer / dispose of the waste. A copy should stay in the lorry driver’s book, so that if the police stop the vehicle, there is a clear audit trail.
This should always happens with commercial waste– but does it happen with waste from domestic customers?
I must get on to the council and find out what they say.
I remember raising a number of those issues with Mr Collins back in 2016 and with the suggestion of Multi agency joint action exactly like we used to arrange for prevention at Carnivals and revenue days. These are always a resounding success. Both Mr Collins and Mr Ali at that time (and perhaps still are) were very good at getting those matters arranged.
It did make a difference to an extent.
But seriously until these are done as a matter of course and regularly at different locations across the Borough we will not get to grips with the issue.
It is a fact of current life that we have no money. Past revenue was misspent, Current revenues is being prioritized (inappropriately in many opinions) to deal with debt and not what it is collected for.
Whilst that continues no one has resource to ensure Croydon is not messed with.
It is perhaps time for Councillors, Neighborhood Police to involve residents and their CCTV and volunteer patrols to capture waste dumped so reports are ”live’ ‘and current and Council officers should have in place easy methods of reporting fly tipping that work and is acted on rapidly.
It may also be time to think what is cheaper – funding Factory lane (and other sites) better or cleaning up the mess of frustrated people taking rubbish to a tip stuck in a long queue for hours.
Did no one consider that vans (and large cars) full of rubbish stuck in a half mile long tailback would wait 5 hours to empty? some do many do not and most definitely contribute to tipped rubbish across Broad Green right up to Windmill Park.
This is an issue that affects us all money or no money. but Croydon should consider the Rolling rubbish we used to have from Broad Green Residents Association coming back – perhaps those nice people at the Big local with the funding they have received and not spent might consider an October event and ask for Volunteers to assist. You never know they may get more volunteers doing other work with them on their other projects.
So over to the two resident Councillors of Broad Green – lets have a plan and work together with ALL the community to be part of the solution.