Fly-tipping incidents have more than tripled in number since the introduction of a fee on bulky waste collection, data obtained by the Hackney Post has revealed.
The number of reported incidents also nearly quadrupled in four years, from 1,134 in the first quarter of 2015 to 4,007 in the last quarter of 2018, according to the data released under Freedom of Information law.
While the Council introduced a new charge on bulky waste removal in 2017, the number of fly-tipping incidents skyrocketed by 220 per cent between June and September, the highest ever recorded (to 3,837)
The Council offered free collection of bulky waste until September 2017, but now charges £15 to collect up to five objects. The fee is not based on the type of object and the Council does not incentivise legal disposal by applying discounts on requests for less than five objects.
Before the introduction of the new fee, the number of fly-tipping incidents had reached its lowest level since early 2015. Between January and March 2017, there were just 621 reported incidents, a decrease of more than 50 per cent since the same period in 2016.
The Council said last year it misreported fly-tipping rates for the whole year of 2016-2017. Official data recorded incidents jumping from 3,267 in 2016/17 to 9,821 in 17/18.
The Council said the increase was due to an error in the collection of data for the period between 2016 and 2017, the Hackney Citizen newspaper reported.
However, more recent data broken down by quarters shows that a decrease in fly-tipping incidents was ongoing since early 2015. This contradicts the Council’s statement saying no relevant fluctuation in fly-tipping incidents has taken place in the borough.
Darren Martin, vice chair of the Hackney Liberal Democrats, said: “This data shows there is a strong correlation between the bulky waste charge and the increase in fly-tipping incidents. But the Council would rather admit they have lost count instead of acknowledging that there is an increase of fly-tipping in the borough.”
The Council announced the bulky waste charge in September 2017 as a response to government cuts. Councillor Feryal Clark said at the time: “The Council has to save another £14m. We do not want to cut front line services like cleaning streets and maintaining parks, but we are also unable to continue providing certain services for free.”
A spokesperson for Hackney Council responded: “There has been considerable change over the past three years within the Council’s Environmental Services after we successfully integrated our street and estate cleaning teams.
“The figures suggest there was a decrease in fly-tipping from the year before [2016/17]. However, we do not believe this was the case in reality. In 2017/18, full data collection was reestablished and we also included fly-tips from estates in these figures for the first time. As a result the total number of incidents increased when compared to previous years, particularly when compared to 2016/17.”
But the statistics show that the Council employed the same number of people and used the same number of vehicles to record incidents in 2016, 2017 and 2018. The number of reports of fly tipping made to two Council schemes also did not increase in those years.
However, the Council has spent 20 per cent more to dispose of dumped waste since 2015, data reveal. In the first three months of that year, the Council spent about 114,000 pounds. The highest expenditure to dispose of fly-tipping was recorded between July and September of 2017 when the Council spent around 149,000 pounds to remove bulky waste abandoned illegally in the borough. Since then, the cost decreased to about 137,000 pounds.
“You need to look at the bigger picture to see this is not working,” Darren said. “We have already shown the Council evidence that this policy is not working but this Labour-controlled Town Hall feels no need to answer opposition in the borough. This is just another example of lazy policy-making in Hackney.”
This article was updated on Wednesday, 13 March at 3.51 pm to include Hackney Council’s response. A previous version of this article reported that “between July and September of 2017 (…) the Council spent around 192,400 pounds to remove bulky waste”. In fact, the correct amount of money is 149,000 pounds.
