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Barnet gets tough on flytipping over winter

Author: Nina Romain

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Barnet Council is toughening its stance on litter louts by imposing £400 fines for anyone caught flytipping.

In July the council launched its #KeepBarnetClean campaign, a six-month trial programme across the borough to crack down on environmental-crimes such as littering and flytipping.

A dedicated team of Environment Enforcement Officers has been patrolling well-known litter hotspots in the borough and investigating flytipping incidents. From this month they will also be making sure businesses are disposing of their waste correctly.

Currently there have been 15 prosecutions for littering in the borough. These involved the defendants being fined for not paying their Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN), which resulted in each defendant receiving fines totalling £280.

Councillor Dean Cohen, Chairman of Barnet’s Environment Committee, said: “We now have issued more than 1,000 enforcement notices for littering, flytipping and fly posting in our town centres.

“As these figures show, anyone who doesn’t pay the £80 on the spot fine is at risk of being left seriously out of pocket.

“Our #KeepBarnetClean campaign says to anyone who lives in, works in, or visits Barnet that we take pride in our streets – and that littering and flytipping are completely unacceptable. I am confident the higher fine of £400 for flytipping we now have in Barnet will serve as a deterrent to anyone tempted to commit this sort of antisocial behaviour to stop.”

Our latest resident perceptions survey showed that 85 per cent of our residents felt the appearance of their local environment was important to them. Each year the council spends nearly £4million in keeping Barnet’s streets clean. That includes collecting 1,600 tonnes of flytipped waste; equivalent to 200 double decker buses in weight. Collecting and disposing of this flytipped waste cost the council in excess of £1/2 million last year.

The council is responsible for sweeping approximately 833 kilometres of roads and has over 3,000 litter bins across the borough, as we work on keeping the borough clean this winter.

Over the course of the summer, residents organised more than 10 litter picks to play their part in keeping the borough clean.

Residents are being encouraged to report litter and flytipping hotspots through the council’s report a problem page on the website This information will be used to target future enforcement action as needed and keep the borough clean over the cold season.