Officers on the beat plan for Coventry

Waste awareness courses, mandatory litter-picking and covert surveillance are among a list of measures being considered in the fight to reduce fly-tipping and litter across Coventry.

Officers are also looking into having a member of the enforcement team based in each of the city’s 18 council wards for a ‘bobby on the beat’ approach.

Speaking at Coventry City Council’s communities and neighbourhoods scrutiny board last week (October 23),  Adrian Chowns, head of safer housing and communities, outlined some of the options being considered. He also explained that the fine for fly-tipping will be increased from £200 to £1,000  while those caught dropping litter will be fined £500 rather than £100.

Mr Chowns said: “We are currently undertaking a review of the service and the suggestion we want to put forward is that it now be done on a ward-based approach. There will obviously be an ask from the financial perspective but we would like to have one compliance officer or environmental enforcement officer within each ward so we would have a ‘bobby on the beat’ situation. So if there is a particular problem within that ward then that officer will deal with it and residents will hopefully get to know who that person is.

“We also recognise that there is a need for us to start balancing education with enforcement because prevention is better than cure so we are hoping to introduce waste education officers into the service. There are people who have not lived in Coventry before who don’t know which coloured bin to use. It would also be about educating them in the consequences of not presenting that waste correctly.

We are also looking at some alternatives to enforcement – rather than just issuing someone with a penalty. Where it is a low level offence we are looking that rather than fining someone £200 which they might not be able to afford, we would send them on a waste awareness course where they would have to spend a day in the classroom. We are also looking at whether we can introduce litter-picking as a punishment – not necessarily as part of a community event but something that we would arrange and manage.

“Finally one thing that we are going to investigate is the possibility of covert surveillance. We know that residents will video someone dumping waste which they send to us but it is not always valid for us to use so it may be that we have a man in a van driving around doing that covert surveillance.”

There was general support for the measures with Cllr Pervez Akhtar, deputy cabinet member for policing and equalities, saying that fly-tipping was a ‘filthy habit’ and a burden on tax payers.

Cllr Christine Thomas added: “I don’t think the waste awareness course should be seen as an alternative for people who can’t pay. If they can’t pay immediately we should add it on to the council tax. It might sound a bit radical but they shouldn’t get away with not paying, it could be paid in monthly instalments.”