We're on to you! Council vows to get tough on flytippers blighting Calderdale with rubbish

Cabinet member for Public Services and Communities, Coun Jenny Lynn, had been asked to say how many cameras had been deployed, perpetrators caught and prosecutions made in Calderdale in the last 12 months.

Coun Lynn reported to the full Calderdale Council that a covert camera had been deployed at Cold Edge Road, above Wainstalls, Halifax, which had been a fly-tipping hot spot.

She told councillors: “We managed to get not only the vehicle registration number but also moved to arrest the culprit and we are reasonably hopeful that will be a successful prosecution and may even result in the confiscation of the vehicle.”

Coun Robert Thornber (Con, Ryburn) said he was happy to hear the council had finally taken action at Cold Edge Road.

But clean-up operations were a huge cost to taxpayers and he wanted to know how many cameras the council could deploy and wanted to see more prosecutions.

“While I understand the ‘cat and mouse’ game to catch perpetrators, the prosecution rate, compared to the number of fly-tipping incidents which occurred last year is pretty dismal,” he said.

Coun Lynn (Lab, Park) said she was not in a position to be able to give the precise figures but the incident described showed the intent.

She urged councillors to get the message out that as far as the council is concerned it is “zero tolerance” for fly-tippers and urged people to use the successful online reporting system to log incidents.

“We do not want people to put themselves at risk, because some of the people who do this dumping at night and all the rest of it could be quite unsavoury characters.

“But if you have an opportunity to note a vehicle registration or an indication of the time which you think could be helpful, then that’s really important.

“We are not prepared to tolerate this in Calderdale and we’re doing our damnedest as a council, in conjunction with the police, to get on top of it,” she said.