Extra £260,000 investment to tackle illegal dumping in 100 days

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has pledged to clear a thousand grot spots across the city in the next 100 days.

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Extra £260,000 investment to tackle illegal dumping in 100 days

Council leaders are sending a stark warning to people who illegally dump waste: ‘stop insulting your neighbours and disrespecting your communities because we’re coming after you.’

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has pledged to clear a thousand grot spots across the city in the next 100 days. And the authority has vowed to publicly name and shame culprits as part of a zero-tolerance response to the crime.

The measures come as the authority’s cabinet has today (Tuesday) announced a further £260,000 investment, in addition to funding from the UK Government via the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, into expanding its environmental cleaning response team to help it deliver on the pledge.

The investment will include the recruitment of four new members of cleansing staff, five new deployable CCTV cameras, a road/pavement sweeper vehicle and driver, an additional two 3.5-tonne tippers and three new enforcement officers.

The environmental cleaning response team, which will complement the work of the existing staff, will also operate during the evenings and weekends.

They will be responsible for identifying the source of the waste, ensuring waste is lawfully disposed of, investigating and enforcing the city council’s zero-tolerance approach to waste offences and scouring CCTV. They will also liaise with local residents and businesses to identify where the waste has come from.

Councillor Amjid Wazir, cabinet member for environment and enforcement said: “It’s no secret that Stoke-on-Trent is being plagued by illegally dumped waste and we believe that this new phase of investment will help to tackle that. We want to reduce the time it takes to remove waste from land and alleyways across the city and to do that we need resources.

“We are taking a zero-tolerance approach to fly-tipping and we will not hesitate to name and shame those responsible. Now is the time for residents to take ownership of where they live and take pride in the city.”

“This is a small amount of targeted investment that will have a big impact in improving our communities, encouraging residents to take pride in where they live, and taking swift action to tackle culprits.”

The council’s new administration which began work in May made an immediate priority of clamping down on illegal dumping. The authority issued 109 fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping in May alone. The clampdown has already seen a sweep of illegal dumping and enforcement action in one of the five most fly-tipped areas of the city, in a number of alleys off Sun Street, Shelton take place at the beginning of June, and this action has so far had a lasting impact in seeing the alleys remain clear of waste.

At the end of the 100 days, community respect days will be taking place to cement the message home, ‘There is no place for illegal dumping in our towns’.

More information on the respect days will be announced in the coming months.