Council among most active on fly-tipping

PLYMOUTH CITY COUNCIL FINED MOST OF ALL DEVON AUTHORITIES

- RICHARD AULT & KATIE TIMMS

PLYMOUTH City Council fined hundreds of fly-tippers last year and is one of the most active councils in handing out such fines.

Plymouth's local authority fined more fly-tippers than any other in Devon. It comes as the Government named and shamed six councils in the county that failed to issue a single fine last year.

For the first time, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has produced league tables ranking councils on how 'muscular' their approach is to littering. They show that Plymouth City Council handed out 475 Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) fines to fly-tippers last year, more than any other local authority in Devon and the 38th highest of more than 300 councils in England.

There were more incidents of fly-tipping in Plymouth than anywhere else in Devon, a total of 6,264 last year. That means that for every incident of fly-tipping, the council handed out 0.08 fines - or one for every 13 incidents of fly-tipping, placing Plymouth 54th on the Government's league table, and second in Devon, behind Torbay.

Plymouth City Council also took alternative enforcement action, which can include cautions, stop-and-search inspections or seizing vehicles, on 1,800 occasions.