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| Previously published on Wembley Matters 0 Springtime flytip Chalkhill |
Cllr John Duffy (Labour, Kilburn) has returned to the fray over Brent Council's policy on the environment and particularly fly-tipping and littering enforcement.
He is starting a consultation with residents which he says will try and improve environmental
services and hopefully stop or change the £35 bulky waste charge and
start a schools initiative. All parties are welcome to comment.
He has publicised his initiative on his blog Kilburn Calling
LINK and this is an edited version.
In an email to all Brent councillors he says:
Dear All,
I am asking for your input into improving the
environmental services available in Brent. I wonder have you a moment to
comment on the issues below.
From my observations Brent Environmental services are
often very good, but are very inconsistent and have lacked direction.
It is also clear that the Cabinet continues to waste
precious resources and I believe they have no enforcement strategy or are aware
of the tactics needed to ensure implementation of an enforcement strategy. The
Brent cabinet believe it’s easier to pick the ratepayer’s pocket, than look for
solutions. The cabinet have struggled to make environmental enforcement against
fly-tipping a priority and relied on unnecessary price increases to cover -up
their lack of direction. I find it astonishing that the cabinet continue to
Laud over their Zero -tolerance(ZT) policy which waste £100k of precious
resources boosting they have issued 6000 FPN ( 99% on fag butts). They do this
while concealing the fact Fly -Tipping went up by a staggering 32%
at the same time.
I am sure I can speak for many resident in Brent when
saying if the local police started a ZT policy against burglaries in Brent and
arrest 6000 burglars, and at the sometime burglaries when up by 32%. No one
would think that was a success most people would call it a failure, however the
Cabinet seem to think the opposite.
I believe we need to re-prioritise Brent’s enforcement
policy from the sound bite Zero-Tolerance (ZT) into what used to be called
Smart Enforcement which means the policy will be judged by improvements
in cleansing out comes (less fly-tipping) not by how many FPNs have been issue.
Enforcement needs co-ordinating of all resources available
from the council, the contractor and residents. It is important we seek Value
for money to protect and improve the Environment and the cabinet should not
treat the residents as a Cash Cow.
The cabinet have continually raised environmental taxes,
if you have a Green Bin you pay an extra £20 and an extra £35 for bulky waste
collections (allowing for only one collection PA) is £55.That is the equivalent
of a 4% rise in council tax this year alone. Some costs are reasonable but
other are needless and wasted on paying private contractors to sit outside tube
station fining people who drop dog -ends before they get on a train. Instead
the cabinet should be investing in a intergrated Environmental Enforcement
strategy.
One of the biggest mistake the cabinet made was having no
consultation with residents or councillors
What I am
suggesting is listed below.I am putting forward these suggestions for
consultation with residents. Once the consultation is complete I hope to
gain enough support to call a special meeting of the council in
November/December to discuss and implement some of the suggestion and hopefully
reconsider the £35 cost for Bulky Waste collections.
ENFORCEMENT AND
ANTI FLY-TIPPING STRATEGY
(1) MAPPING
Firstly we have to analyse the 17000 fly-tips we had
last year and remove any duplication, we then have to map the hot spots in each
ward (or Village) where the there is consistent fly-tipping dumping.
(2) SIGNAGE
/ WARNING LETTERS / ENFORCEMENT NOTICES
Our no Dumping Signs,Warning/Information letter and
Enforcement Notices need overhauling and updated. All information needs to be A
(Accurate) B (Brief) C (Clear) with a Direct Enforcement contact email
and telephone number should be showing. All correspondence should seek
to be ABC.
(3) ZONAL
IMPROVEMENT PATROL (ZIP)
The government legislation allows us to keep
all income we receive from fines, with that income we should fund at least two
ZIP team this team will deal with consistent areas of dumping. These teams will
be on top of existing officers and should be self funding via the income
from the FPNs.
All zone one (High streets or roads with a
transport hub) with a time -banding collections service should be visited at
least twice a week for inspection and where possible at least one of
those should be the week-end where the foot-fall is higher
(4) OFFICERS
TRAINING
All officers should be generically trained to
deal with enforcement. The service over the last year has had the wrong
priorities and has been side-tracked away from Fly-tipping have concentrated
on Section 87/88 of the EPA (Littering FPN)
Officers should also be trained and use
Section 33 (Depositing waste)
Section 34 (Duty Of Care)
Section 59 (Private Land )
Section 46 (Domestic Bins)
Section 47 (Commercial Bins)
Section 90 (Litter Controls Areas)
or any legislation which has replaced them
This will give Officers the knowledge to deal with a wider
range of problems of areas behind shops Neasden, Edgware Road, Hassop Rd and
Waterloo passage as some examples.
(5) Follow -up
enforcement
Many of the problems are reoccurring problems. Brent’s
officer’s do a good job on their initial visit and clear -up the fly-tips and
many issue FPNs to perpetrators. However where they often fail is the follow-up
monitoring, it is important we have re- inspections on persistent hot spots and
they should be carried out once a week for the first 6 months and once a month
for the following 6 months, before the job is signed off. Its is important we
do not just temporarily remove the problem, its important we solve the problem.
(6) Schools and
Education
One of the great failures of the Cabinet and
the Labour group is the neglect of environmental education of our young people.
Whether it be on issues from graffiti, litter, air - quality or recycling , they
have been neglected . This is clearly a wasted opportunity. What I am proposing
is a yearly environmental award. This award will paid for by a community chest
of say approx £25k PA and will be funded by contractors who have environmental
contracts with us. The Brent Environmental Award (BEA) involve all
schools all schools would be sent a Environmental bundle ( litter pickers, tabards,
environmental books etc) the older students would become “Brent Environmental
Champions” and offered (Environmental) work experience with our contractors or
the council along with other rewards and opportunities .The Younger ones would
become “Litter Detectives” and learn about their local environment and
how they can improve it. I attach a poem that was sung by some London
schools (including one from Brent) which I produced some time ago.
We need to work with our Head teachers to draw
out how the (BEA) can be used in the classroom , schools are also major
resource to spread information, to get out anti-littering and fly-tipping and
general environmental information out to parents.
(7) Bulky
Waste
The decision of the cabinet to introduce a cost for a
bulky waste collection needs to be reviewed. I believe this decision is bad
economics and bad for the environment. It would appear that the decision is
purely to raise money and to cover up the inefficient service and the cabinet
failure to monitor it. The fact is the residents had already paid for a free
service in the street cleansing contract . At a time when fly-tipping is going
up by 32% PA, residents need to understand the logic of how this policy will help
control fly-tipping or increase income.
(8) Recycling
Again this is one of the areas the cabinet have
neglected. It was once the holly grail of environment but has been ignored .The
council moved from a once a fortnight collection to a once a week collection
and the recycling tonnage has hardly increased and overall our tonnage is down.
This again is about the cabinet making the environment a priority. Tonnage can
be improved by a number of ways, but mostly i believe it by information and
reward. We need to analyse the wards that are failing to recycled and target
them.
(9) Street
Cleansing.
Street cleansing performance is in my opinion
of a good standard, however we need to be more open and have independent
surveys carried out. At the moment we are self-monitoring. The council
and the contractor carry out monitoring. Monitoring of our high streets is not
done out of hours or at the weekend when the service often fails. I believe we
need to employ an independent company like the Tidy Britain Group or another
Council to monitor our services and provide us with independent surveys.
As I have said before many of Brent’s services
are street cleansing are often good but can be improved. The issue above are
some of the areas we can improve in. I would appreciate any input you can put
into this If you can reply to
CLLR.JOHN.DUFFY@BRENT.GOV.UK.
and call the email
IMPROVING SERVICES.
