A wall of shame for Bromley fly-tippers – even though they are very thin on the ground

BY KIRO EVANS, Local Democracy Reporter

A ‘wall of shame’ for fly-tippers could be coming to Bromley – even though almost no one is fined for dumping rubbish there.

Bromley councillors hatched the plan after it was revealed only one person had been prosecuted for the crime in the first three quarters of 2021/22.

This comes despite waste firm Veolia dealing with 2,157 fly-tipping incidents during that period.

Just nine fixed penalty notices, along with 44 warning letters and 23 formal notices, had been issued in that time.

While councillors were impressed to see a drop in fly-tipping from last year, they were left exploring options of how to bring the number down even further.

Council officer and street enforcement manager Dean Laws, who heads the fly-tipping action plan, told the public protection and policy, development and scrutiny committee a wall of shame was being considered for those caught.

Councillor Alexa Michael said: “We’ve had one prosecution. Was this publicised? Do they go on a wall of shame? What happens when someone is successfully prosecuted?”

Mr Laws replied: “That isn’t happening as of yet, but a wall of shame is certainly being looked into and I’ve been in contact with colleagues in the council to look at this.”

He later added: “One of the things I’m looking at is creating more streamlined, corporate messaging towards fly-tipping.

“So I’m looking at using the action plan to create annual programmes review of the comms which will look at the wall of shame. However, we are looking into the legal aspects of such a venture.”

Council documents stressed the difficulty in prosecuting fly-tippers was due to a unwillingness for witnesses to attend court and the quality of evidence received.

Cllr Chris Pierce also wanted to make this point known.

He told the committee: “I was wondering if we could consider more publicity for our residents about the challenges of prosecuting fly-tipping? They have quite a simplistic view.

“For example, ‘I saw the van go up the road and it came back empty therefore it must be them, therefore prosecute them’ but we all know it’s not that simple.

“Is there anything we can do, perhaps something on our website, where we could point out the difficulties about evidence, burdens of proof, unreliable CCTV, etcetera?”

Mr Laws added he would be working with the environment agency to track down fly-tippers not “bound by borders”.

He said: “We’ve been working very insular in Bromley and we need to be more intelligence-based so I’ve created contacts in the environment agency whereby we can share information and target those who are known to fly-tip.

“They are not bound by borders and will go from Sevenoaks to Bromley and elsewhere