Surrey joins calls for tougher legal action to deter flytipping
The Surrey Environment Partnership says current punishments are not enough
The body managing Surrey's waste is calling for tougher legal action to deter flytipping.
The Surrey Environment Partnership - made up of the county council and 11 borough and district councils - has joined other local authorities and professional bodies covering Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Devon, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk and Warwickshire, in asking the Sentencing Council to consider changes.
The SEP says "currently, sentences handed down do not always match the severity of the offence committed or fairly reflect the costs incurred by the public purse.
"This means that punishment for the offence of fly-tipping does not act as a suitable deterrent."
It comes as part of a proposed review of the Environmental Offences Definitive Guideline (2014).
Among the suggestions is more use of suspended prison sentences, which it says has proved to be a strong deterrent to serial fly-tipping offenders in Buckinghamshire.
Other suggestions include:
• Court fines would exceed the cost of Fixed Penalty Notice fines and would include costs incurred by the public purse and the police in bringing a fly-tipper to court.
• Costs related to the clean-up of fly-tipping on private land and restoration of that land would be included in fines paid by those who are prosecuted.
• When deciding the level of fine, fly-tipping would be looked at by the court as an offence first, and not at the person and their ability to pay first. It has been suggested that means testing should be used to ascertain what type of fine(s) to give, and never how much should be paid.
• If a defendant cannot pay the fine in full, or in part, it is strongly recommended that community-based sentences are more widely used and available across all offence categories.
• Anyone convicted of a second fly-tipping offence is given a custodial sentence rather than another suspended sentence.
Chairman of SEP, Councillor Neil Dallen, said: “Without an effective deterrent, the number of fly-tips will continue to go up, creating a massive burden on our resources and causing a blight on our countryside.
"We urge the Sentencing Council to respond to the areas we have highlighted for review.”