Telford & Wrekin Council tackles Brookside fly tippers
Telford & Wrekin Council is bringing a new CSI-style approach to tackling the problem as part of an awareness campaign to highlight all environmental crimes including fly tipping.
The latest dump at a fly tipping hot spot in Brookside is being treated exactly like a crime scene in the popular American crime drama TV series CSI.
It has been taped off and signs put up warning people that it is a criminal offence to fly tip.
Enforcement officers will search the materials and are carrying out door to door enquiries including handing out information to try and flush out the perpetrators.
The CSI-style approach is intended to be the first a series of similarly proactive investigations to try and raise awareness of the issue of fly tipping and inform on how to dispose of your rubbish correctly and safely.
Councillor Shaun Davies, cabinet member for Neighbourhood Services, said: “The major problem with combating fly tipping is you effectively have to catch somebody in the act of discarding rubbish in order to make charges and ultimately a prosecution stick.
“That is why it is such a difficult issue for the council to tackle because you can’t be everywhere at once. Residents can help by being our eyes and ears and reporting any fly tips they see.
“The CSI approach is intended to raise the profile of fly tipping as an issue and to make fly tipping socially unacceptable. We also hope that our investigations will reveal who it is who is gratuitously littering our borough and costing the taxpayer substantial amounts of money in clean up costs.
“We intend to learn from this pilot and if it proves to be successful, we will roll it out to other parts of the borough.”
Residents can report fly tips and other environmental crimes via Telford & Wrekin Council’s app Everyday Telford, which can now be used on Windows phones, as well as iPhone and iPad and Android devices.
