Gavin Williamson, MP for South Staffordshire, has welcomed the new fixed penalty notices for fly-tippers that came into effect this week but has called for more to be done.
The fines, which range between £150 and £400, allow local authorities to quickly deal with fly-tippers on a small scale, without the need for the judicial process. This will, in part, help towards fly-tipping which is costing authorities around £50 million a year to tackle.
Gavin has repeatedly called for more severe punishments for fly-tippers who continue to blight country lanes and farmland around the constituency. Latest Government figures show that last year, local authorities in England dealt with 900,000 incidents of fly-tipping which was an increase of 5.6% on the previous year, two thirds of these incidents involving household waste.
Commenting on the new measures Gavin said: “Although I welcome this step in the right direction that sees a speedier justice process, fines for these environmental vandals are still ridiculously low and need to be much tougher to have a realistic effect.
“There has been a growing number of fly-tipping incidents on public and private land around South Staffordshire, which has left some land owners out of pocket, paying for someone else’s rubbish to be taken away.
“£50 million could be spent on so many worthwhile causes instead of clearing up after these individuals and I will continue to push Ministers to look at measures to enforce stricter and costlier penalties so we can see these disgusting incidents come to a stop.”