Fly-tipping increased during lockdown across parts of East Sussex

A ‘gradual but significant increase’ in fly-tipping incidents have been reported during the coronavirus lockdown, councillors have heard.
An example of fly-tippingAn example of fly-tipping
An example of fly-tipping

According to the paper considered at a virtual meeting of the East Sussex Joint Waste Committee on Friday (July 3), the number of fly-tipping reports in Hastings, Rother and Wealden began to rise as lockdown went on.

The committee oversees the work of the Joint Waste Partnership which sees Wealden District, Hastings Borough, Rother District councils share waste collection services through a contract with Biffa.

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In a report considered by the committee, a spokesman for the partnership said: “A gradual but significant increase in the number of fly-tips has been recorded since the beginning of May.

“This trend is being investigated and is also being considered by the county-wide Waste Strategy and Resource Group so comparisons can be made with neighbouring councils.”

Figures in the committee papers show there were an average of 23 reports per week from March 3 to 29, rising to 35 average reports between March 30 and April 26.

The average rose to 43 between April 27 and May 24, while the past four weeks (May 25 to June 21) have seen an average of 52 reports per week. 

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The papers go on to say there is a speculative link between the rise in fly-tipping reports, the closure of county council tips and the temporary suspension of bulky waste collections, a service which is currently in high demand.

During the meeting, the committee discussed the wider impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the councils’ joint waste partnership.  

At its height, more than a quarter (27 per cent) of Biffa staff  were either off-sick or shielding.  This figure exceeded 20 per cent at each depot, each day, between March 23 to March 27.

Due to this high number of staff absences, a number of services were temporarily suspended including new bin deliveries, non-urgent fly-tip removal, bulky waste collections  and the collection of garden waste. 

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According to the councils, this was done so that the remaining staff could be redeployed to core services such as bin collections and street cleansing.

While bulky waste collections were temporarily suspended in Hastings and Wealden, Biffa continued to collect any pre-booked collections before the service was completely suspended.

Waste Partnership Manager Madeleine Gorman told the committee, the councils are in the process of agreeing temporary changes to the contract to reflect Biffa’s response to the pandemic.

These changes – which Ms Gorman said were not contentious – were because the contract in normal circumstances sets out expectations on what services would be provided, which could not be fulfilled during the pandemic.

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Ms Gorman said: “The key point of it is, if the pandemic re-escalates or if we face anything like this again in the future, we will be very well-positioned to handle all of the contractual and financial implications quite simply, because we have agreed to the principles of how we should handle them.

“We don’t think this is quite over yet and we don’t know what our new normal will really look like. I think it is important that we as a team, managing a contract with fairly clear black lines must deal with the reality.

“The contract, if necessary, will be subject to further variations, but members can be reassured that there is a good management structure that is looking to protect the councils’ interests in a fair and reasoned way with Biffa.”

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