More waste fines after city reclaims unwanted fly-tipping crown

Nicholas Thomas Local Democracy Reporter

More people are being fined and prosecuted in a Welsh city for waste offences, councillors have been reassured, after the city reclaimed the unwanted title of Wales’ fly-tipping capital.

The latest figures show 8,139 of the 42,171 fly-tipping incidents which local authorities recorded last year were in the Newport City Council area.

At a council scrutiny committee meeting on Monday, Cllr Kate Thomas asked how officers were tackling the problem.

Waste offences

Silvia Gonzalez-Lopez, the head of environment and public protection, said the council issued more than 200 fixed-penalty notices for fly-tipping and other waste offences so far this year, compared with only a few dozen in 2023/24.

Prosecutions have risen from eight last year to 18 so far this year, she added.

Cllr Thomas welcomed the “significant increase” in punishments but said “habitual offenders” still dumped rubbish regularly at a hotspot in her Stow Hill ward.

Ms Gonzalez-Lopez said residents “sometimes just need a bit of guidance and support to rectify certain issues” but accepted there was “a core element” responsible for persistent waste offences, despite being in the minority.

Frustrations

The committee heard frustrations, too, about the difficulties in catching fly-tippers.

Paul Jones, the council’s director for environment and sustainability, said the system was “very bureaucratic” and required “a lot of work”.

But officers are “working as hard as they can” on the “priority” issue, he added.

Cllr Alex Pimm asked whether the council was using CCTV to catch fly-tippers.

He was told its effectiveness was limited because some hotspots were unsuitable for cameras, and reviewing footage could be resource-intense.

Mr Jones said the council had used CCTV to “tremendous success” on the so-called “road to nowhere” in western Newport, but admitted cameras were “as much use as a chocolate teapot” if “men in balaclavas pull up in the dark” and dump waste somewhere.

The resources and staffing required for catching fly-tippers could cost thousands of pounds, only for a culprit “to get a £400 fine”, Mr Jones added, calling the matter “frustrating” and “demoralising for officers”.

“Huge problems”

Cllr Mark Howells, chairing the meeting, asked whether the council differed between fly-tipping and households not using their bins “correctly”.

“People, with the three-weekly bin collections, are just taking black bags and putting [them] next to a bin,” he said. “We are having huge problems with that. It is fly-tipping, isn’t it?”

Ms Gonzalez-Lopez said any people moving waste from their property and “dumping it” elsewhere is “clearly fly-tipping”.

She said the council had started a sticker campaign and was “concentrating our efforts” on the problem, which she said “come from a lack of understanding” of the rules.

“Some engagement with people is needed but we will be fining people who do that, if we find evidence,” she added.

Newport City Council spent £343,000 on clearing up fly-tipping last year, the figures also show.