Takling fly tipping together in Hertfordshire

The Waste Aware Hertfordshire Partnership has a multi-agency taskforce, the Hertfordshire Fly Tipping Group (FTG), to focus on co-ordinated action on fly tipping. It's been so successful it's being rolled out across other areas too. Here, we outline how it works, what has happened and why it's producing results.

Author
NRCN
Location
Hertfordshire, England
Crime Type
Fly-tipping
The problem

Summary

Waste Aware Hertfordshire Partnership has a multi-agency taskforce, the Hertfordshire Fly Tipping Group (FTG).

Membership includes the boroughs, districts and county council, as well as the police, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, Herts Fire & Rescue Service, the Environment Agency, the National Farmers Union and Keep Britain Tidy. The FTG chairman, and Hertfordshire Waste Partnership development manager, is Duncan Jones. The work of the Hertfordshire FTG has helped reduce fly tipping in the area. Provisional figures for 2018/19 so far (April – August) show a reduction of 6% in the number of fly tipping incidents recorded by Hertfordshire’s Boroughs and Districts. This reduction is in addition to the 17.9% fall in incidents recorded in 2017/18 which dropped by a total of 2731 compared to 2016/17.

Their fly tipping campaign continues to be expanded outside of Hertfordshire with confirmed rollouts now in Buckinghamshire, Kent, Lancaster and Norfolk who between them cover 26 local authorities. 14 more toolkits have been given to local authorities and local authority partnerships across the UK that has the potential to add another 23 local authorities across the UK. In addition to this the FTG is currently dealing with 7 more enquiries with the potential to further expand the use of the fly tipping toolkits to another 11 local authorities.

Members of the FTG have presented to a number of groups so far in 2018 including:

  • DEFRA’s Waste Crime Unit
  • Some local MPs and further ones are planned
  • Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) conference, breakout session – June 2018
  • National Fly Tipping Prevention Group
  • Environment Agency’s national communications group
  • Association of London Cleansing Officers
  • Kent Resource Partnership
  • Association of Public Service Excellence
  • Inside Government Conference – one of two presentations from Hertfordshire – 17 October 2018
  • Westminster Briefing – 30 October 2018

In addition the FTG has recently lobbied 30 MPs with respect to seeking a ban on cash transactions as a means to tackle ‘Facebook fly tippers’. So far a number of letters in support of the FTGs proposals have been received including from Oliver Dowden MP, Minister for Implementation.

In September the FTG’s fly tipping campaign was shortlisted for awards from both the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee as well as the Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE). Whilst ultimately unsuccessful at the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) awards that took place on 10 October 2018; the FTG also presented to the APSE awards panel on 18 October 2018 in support of the FTG’s short listing for an innovation award. Earlier in 2018 the FTG won awards from Keep Britain Tidy as well as the Association of Directors of Environment, Planning and Transport.

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