Council officers with fly-tip cleared into van
The council is launching a crackdown on fly tippers in four of the borough’s hotspots for fly tipping, Hendon, West Hendon, Cricklewood and Burnt Oak. Each year the council spends more than £500,000 on clearing illegally dumped waste, and this crackdown aims to increase the number of reports being made to enable prosecution of fly tippers while also reducing the number of incidents. The approach will be monitored and evaluated before potentially being rolled out to other areas.
Teams of officers from the council’s community safety team will use high-tech re-deployable cameras as well as high-visibility patrols and the council’s CCTV patrol vans in known problem areas to disrupt regular fly tippers. The council’s street scene team will raise awareness among residents in those areas of the right way to dispose of waste, including advice on bulky collections and community skips. On-street engagement hubs and door knocking by both teams in known problem areas will also take place over the next three months in a bid to tackle fly tipping head-on.
The council will also be using on-street promotion and targeted social media, co-produced with residents, to encourage reporting and raise awareness of the campaign under the tagline of ‘Fly tippers: We will find you. We will fine you’, as part of the ongoing work through the ‘Caring for Our Places’ strand of Our Plan for Barnet.
This is the latest phase of focused work to target fly tippers since a new approach was put in place in early 2024 that has seen close partnership working between collection and enforcement teams to deal quickly and effectively with incidents of dumped waste.
Councillor Alan Schneiderman, Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, said: “Fly tipping is consistently one of the issues at the top of most councillors’ agendas in terms of resident complaints. People who think they can illegally dump waste on our streets and open spaces without being seen should think again – we are cracking down on fly tipping in the borough’s worst hotspots and will be issuing fixed penalties and pursuing prosecutions against known repeat offenders. We will find you and we will fine you.”
Councillor Sara Conway, Cabinet Member for Community Safety, added: “It is an absolute priority of our community safety officers to identify and enforce against people who are fly tipping on the streets of Barnet. This targeted campaign will include using our community safety pop-up hubs and our upgraded and expanded CCTV technology to provide education and outreach as well as find and fine anyone caught illegally dumping waste.”
Notes to editors:
Journalists and photographers who would like to attend an engagement hub or come out on a patrol should contact Johnathan Schroder via Johnathan.schroder@barnet.gov.uk to arrange. More information about the council’s work to tackle fly tipping can be found on the campaign hub at www.barnet.gov.uk/caringforourplaces.