Fly-tippers tracked down as public respond to campaign
A surge in fly-tipping reports in Linlithgow is a sign that the public is responding to a clean-up campaign, it has been claimed.
The council recently launched it’s Don’t Waste West Lothian campaign encouraging people to report fly-tippers. A senior manager from Operational Services said that more than a dozen people had called in about two separate incidents in the ward, enabling staff to track down the culprits, members of the local area committee heard this week.
Councillors professed astonishment that the number of fly-tipping enquiries in the ward had leapt from 14 in October to December 2022 to 52 in the final three months of 2023. The resulting clean-up costs had also surged, from £947 in 2022 to more than £2,500 last year.
SNP councillor Pauline Orr asked if it was possible a link could be made to reduced opening hours at the town’s recycling centre. “Has the connection been identified by yourselves, the costs involved are quite significant?”
Andy Johnston, countryside manager, told the meeting: “The one thing I would draw your attention to is that it is enquiries and not incidents, the increase from 14 to 52. There are multiple reports of one incident. That’s a result of the fly-tipping campaign Don’t Waste West Lothian that was launched last September to raise awareness and encourage people to report. There were 38 incidents from 52 enquiries.”
Mr Johnston added: “We have had success on the back of that. There have been two fairly large scale incidents in the Linlithgow ward. On one we received nine enquiries to the same incident from various witnesses, the other we received five reports from various witnesses.
“What we have been able to do on the back of that is gather evidence and been able to corroborate evidence and we have identified the culprits in both incidents and been able to follow that through and successfully issue fixed penalty notices.”
Mr Johnston said there was no evidence of any link between recycling centre site opening time changes and fly-tipping, the bulk of which is commercial waste. Mr Johnston said that surges could be down to increases in the cost of disposal of commercial waste, at up to £200 a tonne for bulky waste such as furniture.