Fury as Walsall fly-tipping ‘epidemic' costs £880,000

Independent Blakenall ward councillor Pete Smith said fly-tipping and littering in the borough was at “epidemic” proportions and would be much worse were it not for volunteering litter pickers.

At a full council meeting on Monday, he asked for information on the scale of the issue and what was being done to tackle the issue.

He was told the authority spent around £880,000 picking up fly-tipping and rubbish off Walsall streets.

There are 963 registered litter-picking volunteers and between July 2022 and June this year, they removed approximately 20,905 bags of rubbish.

To date, the council has issued 1,448 fixed penalty notices for littering, with a further 471 handed out for littering from a vehicle.

Fly-tipping has seen 18 people receive fines, while there are 11 court prosecutions and a further five ‘single justice procedures’ either completed or pending.

Three vehicles have been seized for being involved in environmental crime – one currently in storage and two have been crushed after no one came forward to claim them.

Councillor Smith said: “The anti-social phenomena of fly tipping and litter dropping across many parts of our borough seem to be almost of epidemic proportions.

“It would be even worse were it not for the volunteer 'army' of litter pickers who give up their own time to help keep our streets, hedges and green spaces clean, despite many feeling that they are fighting a losing battle.”

Councillor Garry Perry, deputy leader for resilient communities, said they were in the process of recruiting four additional four community protection officers to tackle the issue.

He said as well as enforcement, they were looking at other ways of tackling the issue such as setting up ‘crime scenes’ and using CCTV.

Councillor Perry added they owe a debt to the volunteers but also slammed those who go out and commit offences.

He said: “There are areas in this borough where people simply don’t give a damn.

“It doesn’t matter what we do, whether we’ve got great armies of litter pickers who take pride in their area and want to live in a borough that’s clean and green, we can enforce, we can target, we can do everything and we can threaten.

“But there are people who don’t give a monkeys. So what can we do? We’ve got to keep having these conversations, got to keep raising the profile, we’ve done everything we can at our disposal.

“It’s about time the people of Walsall, instead of going on social media and picking issues to criticise us for collectively, criticised the people living amongst us who are dumping household rubbish on the street creating circumstances where rats are thriving.”

Walsall Council leader Mike Bird said: “It’s horrific to hear £880,000 for fly-tipping. What could we do with that kind of money? How many people could we help?

“Identify these individuals who are bleeding us to death, some of them from outside the borough.

“Our job is to make sure our residents are safe and in quality accommodation and effectively saying they are proud to be Walsall residents.

"The pride in Walsall seems to be gone. We didn’t make that happen.”