Conservative councillor Maria Alexandrou says the council’s approach to fly-tipping “isn’t good enough”, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

A fly-tipping warning sign and (inset) Maria Alexandrou

An opposition councillor claims Enfield Council’s approach to fly-tipping “isn’t good enough” after a report revealed nearly 3,000 fines have gone unpaid.

Conservative councillor Maria Alexandrou, who represents Winchmore Hill ward, highlighted the 2,819 outstanding fines for fly-tipping between April 2023 and November 2023, as reported by the council.

When the issue was brought up at an environment forum meeting last week, Cllr Alexandrou said the council boasted that 6,564 fines had been issued during the period. But the Tory councillor told them it wasn’t “very good” if they “weren’t collecting them”.

Cllr Alexandrou said despite the warning and final notice letters fly-tippers were receiving, she felt fines were being written off too often. She said: “That means less money for the council, and if you’re not collecting fines how is that a deterrent?”

Cllr Alexandrou also mentioned the government’s antisocial behaviour action plan for 2023 and how it proposed increasing fines for fly-tipping from £400 to £1,000, but felt the council needed to give more reassurances over how it could enforce the change.

“If people can’t afford it, they’re not going to pay it. If they’re not paying the £400 now how are they going to pay the £1,000?”

To help tackle the issue Cllr Alexandrou would like to see more environmental enforcement officers hired to help collect outstanding fly-tipping fines, as well as installing more CCTV cameras.

The council installed CCTV at 29 “hotspot” locations for fly-tipping last year. But the Labour administration pledged to install 200 in its 2022 manifesto.

Cllr Alexandrou also doubts the council can achieve its recycling target for households next year. Following an increase from 30.9% in 2021/22 to 34.2% in 2022/23, the council has set a target of 44% for 2023/24.

But Cllr Alexandrou said: “I don’t know how they’re going to reach that without bringing back weekly recycling collections – that’s what they should do.”

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The council moved to fortnightly bin collections back in 2020.

The average household recycling rate for England is 44%, but the London average is far lower at around 33%. Even so, some London boroughs such as Bromley and Ealing boast recycling rates as high as 49% and 48% respectively.

Update (22nd January):

An Enfield Council spokesperson said: “Enfield currently has the highest recycling rate in North London and has set ambitious targets to align with the Mayor of London’s environment strategy, with a 50% recycling target for council waste collection in 2025.

“We are committed to achieving these ambitious targets with the help of our residents. We will continue to reduce contaminated recycling at the kerbside, promote reducing household waste, and explore how more materials can be recycled from other services. For example, the council is launching a new communications campaign to encourage recycling correctly and the importance of washing items to remove food residue.

“Enfield is one of 19 London boroughs that have moved to fortnightly collection dates. This move has helped the council achieve necessary savings in a challenging financial environment, while also helping improve recycling rates in the borough, which have increased by 3.3% in one year.

“Enfield Council has a robust strategy with a dedicated team of 18 enforcement officers to tackle fly tipping. As a result, Enfield is ranked eighth in the UK for the number of fixed penalty notices (FPNs) issued for these offences.

“While some FPNs remain outstanding, the council has successfully received payment for 1,645 FPN fines in the last year from April to December last year. As is standard practice, we issue three reminder letters as a reasonable approach to enforcement which has seen increased payment rates.

“While the council has ambitions to install more CCTV cameras across the borough, these ambitions can only be met once local government funding is more sustainable.

“We have so far delivered eight mobile fly tipping cameras so they can be moved to target hotspot areas. At the same time, CCTV cameras provide some deterrent but cannot be used in isolation. The council must have a holistic strategy to combat the ongoing challenge and has deployed a variety of initiatives over the last few years in our attempts to tackle fly tipping and to raise awareness of the problem.”

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