Over the last year, Milton Keynes council received over 5,800 reports of fly-tipping, from household rubbish right up to hazardous dumped commercial waste which can cost thousands to deal with.
In response to this, the Council plans to strengthen its enforcement and education work and to invest more CCTV to catch those committing environmental crimes.
The plan also involves giving new powers to local areas for community clear outs and introduce new litter wardens with powers to issue on the spot fines, plus more besides.
The Council has issued 129 Fixed Penalty Notices for waste crimes, including 53 for fly-tipping in the past year.
Milton Keynes Magistrates heard 5 cases of fly-tipping in the last year, issuing penalties totalling over £5,000 and giving one offender 120hrs “community payback".
There are currently 10 cases at MK Magistrates awaiting prosecution for illegal dumping of waste.
On 7th September, cabinet will receive the action plan alongside a proposal to allocate an extra £200,000.
This funding will boost the work being done and increase the Council’s enforcement team to seven people.
Cllr Lauren Townsend, Cabinet Member for the Public Realm said, “Tackling fly-tipping is a priority and we will not stand by and let it worsen. Here in Milton Keynes we’ve received 5,819 fly-tipping reports from the public since March 2020. This is the highest level since 2015.
Sadly we know a minority of people will always continue to fly-tip, but we’ll be investing more in education and enforcement to reduce it to as low a level as possible, putting our biggest efforts into the places in MK we know are fly-tipping hotspots.”
