Agenda item

Report of the Service Director, Development, Transport and Public Protection.

The Committee received a report to update on progress made with environmental enforcement across the borough.

The new on-street environmental enforcement officers have commenced activity and are located within the Parking Services team within Communities and Environment.  The service went live on 8 January 2019.  To date they have issued 31 Fixed Penalty Notices for offences, including dog fouling, littering, littering from vehicles, fly posting and graffiti. 

Operations are intelligence led and there has been a focus on hotspots based on information received from ward members previously.  Councillors and members of the public are encouraged to email CE Environmental Enforcement mailbox with requests for service.  Priorities will then be set based on the nature of the issue and availability of resources. 

The Enforcement Team in Development, Transport and Public Protection carries out a wide range of functions, including Planning and Highways Enforcement and more recently since 2016, Environmental Enforcement.

Further to the last report in April 2018 the approach taken by the Enforcement team to tackle environmental issues has four streams:

·         Reactive work dealing with antisocial issues

·         Proactive work dealing with antisocial issues

·         Reactive work dealing with criminal issues

·         Proactive work dealing with criminal issues

The volume of work dealt with by the team is extremely high with over 6000 complaints about waste related issues being received since April 2018.

The bulk of the work carried out in this area involves issuing Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) to the perpetrators of small scale flytipping.  Adopting this approach has proved to be extremely effective, offering a low cost and proportionate response carrying a deterrent effect and to date there continues to be no repeat offenders.

Since April 2018 60 further FPNs have been issued bring the total to 174 since the team started issuing at the end of 2016.  In the vast majority of cases FPNs are paid, however, if they are not the perpetrator is prosecuted. 

Proactive approaches to dealing with antisocial behaviour now have an established place in the team.  The Lobley Hill & Bensham/Saltwell Waste Pilot focussing on 320 houses in the two wards has now been completed and an evaluation is being prepared.

The enforcement team regularly come across serious criminal activity and since April 2018 a further 24 individuals and businesses have been prosecuted for waste offences.  Penalties include fines totalling £13,237 and costs totalling £5,609, 2 community orders and vehicles used to commit offences have been seized.  Warrants have been issued for more than 10 persons who have failed to attend court when summonsed.

The Enforcement Team carried out regular enforcement exercises targeting waste, crime in partnership with other enforcement agencies including Northumbria Police, HM Revenue and Customs, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the Environment Agency.

The online reporting platform developed with the Digital Team in the Office of the Chief Executive is proving to be an efficient and effective process for the public, Members and Officers to report flytipping with increased accuracy, including uploading photos and pin pointing locations.

RESOLVED -  That the information contained within the report be noted