Fly tipping is the scourge of anywhere, and it is particularly bad in cities where the close proximity of the populace makes it a health hazard in many cases. The number of incidents across the city is, frankly,staggering, and when you compare it to the cost and prosecution rates you have to wonder how, in a city with so many CCTV cameras, the results are so bad.
For example, the Labour Council in Haringey is particularly bad. In 2004-05 there were 52,006 incidents of fly tipping which cost the local Council taxpayer £1,508,358 to clear up. During that time the Council managed to take the grand total of one person to court and convict them. Tory led Kensington and Chelsea meanwhile had 39,677 incidents costing £1,428,542 to clear up, and managed to prosecute six.
Labour run Camden in 2004-05 managed to spend £704,323 on 24,287 incidents and prosecuted no one. Nada, zilch, zero. Lib Dem run Kingston Upon Thames doesn't even known how many incidents it dealt with, or how much it spent, or whether anyone was convicted. Ignorance is bliss I guess.
When you put the figures together across London though you realise not only how much money is spent dealing with the problem but just how little is spent tackling the people doing it. Apologies for yet more raw figures, but in 2004-05 there were 260,621 incidents costing £10,895,449.31. 166 cases were taken court (0.06% of incidents) and we managed to lose 10 of them.
The following year was not much better, the only difference was that the figures pretty much doubled. 484,634 incidents, £16,475,674.9 spent, 308 court cases, and 297 convictions. I wonder if other large cities do just as bad as London on these things? Frankly this isn't a party political matter either, clearly they're all shit.
5 comments:
Is there some arrangement whereby collection and litigation are in separate budgets and one cannot, despite it being obvious, be transferred to the other? Surely spending £16m more on the service in the first place would alleviate the problem?
Our farm yard is starting to look like a branch of DFS.
Those dirty low-down rats who fly tip have the inconsideration to do so outside or local bureaucrats' working hours, so of course they cannot be caught. What is this country coming to ?
Alan Douglas
And of course, those who do the fly tipping have noticed where the cameras are, and take the precaution of doing it somewhere else! Wouldn't you just know it!
careful, anon, you might give nanny the ammunition to introduce hidden cctv. I won't say "give them the idea" becuase you can bet they've already thought of it but haven't thought of how to sell.
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