PCC’s £20,000 investment in CCTV will crackdown on fly-tipping.

Police and Crime Commissioner Joy Allen has agreed to invest £20k into state-of-the-art covert CCTV cameras as part of a tough action plan to tackle fly-tipping.

The County Durham and Darlington PCC has set aside cash for 10 new re-deployable CCTV cameras and related equipment in support of Durham County Council’s work to target fly-tipping hotspots across the county and bring more offenders to justice.

It comes as the government announced tougher penalties to tackle the growing menace of fly-tipping following a campaign by PCCs and the National Rural Crime Network (NRCN).

The changes will see the minimum fine for fly-tipping increase from £400 to £1,000 and new legislation to remove the need to have the regulator present when a police officer seizes a vehicle unlawfully carrying waste. It will also bring additional support for local authorities to enable them to hand out more fines and see the launch of a new league table for local authorities based on fly-tipping performance.

Data shows between 1 February 2022 and 31 January 2023, 71.3 per cent of fly-tipping waste across the Durham force area was cleared without investigation due to a lack of evidence – this amounts to 3,497 separate incidents.

In many cases of fly-tipping, the only opportunity of identifying perpetrators is through witnesses, private CCTV covering the area by chance and the council’s own CCTV cameras deployed to hotspot areas as and when cases appear.

The new covert cameras funded by the PCC will expand the council’s current stock of 16 overt CCTV cameras and 22 environmental (covert) cameras and increase opportunities to capture evidence. It will also increase the council’s CCTV footprint in areas where fly-tipping signage is proving ineffective, and investigations are producing negative results.  

Commissioner Allen has promised to tackle the issues that matter most to residents including fly-tipping, vandalism and dog-fouling.

Under the Safer Communities theme of her Police and Crime Plan, the PCC has prioritised action against all forms of anti-social behaviour. She has also pledged to take robust steps to tackle fly-tipping in rural areas.  

Commissioner Allen said: “Fly-tipping blights our communities and drains public funds. It is simply unacceptable that local people should have to put up with this nuisance and costly behaviour.  

“I’ve spoken to many residents and understand the impact that fly-tipping has on their lives. This is why I promised in my Police and Crime Plan to treat it seriously.

“This investment is one of the many ways I am delivering on my promise. I am determined to increase opportunities to gather evidence against the perpetrators of these crimes and ensure our partners have every tool possible to bring offenders to justice.  

“With the addition of these covert cameras to step up enforcement activity in every corner of our county, criminals should take heed that their actions could be exposed at any given moment.”

All fly-tips which may contain evidence are reported to the county council’s Neighbourhood Warden service for investigation. In cases where there is unlikely to be any evidence, such as illegal dumping of building or green waste, they are referred to the Clean and Green (C&G) department for initial investigation and then removal.

Figures show there were 4,905 C&G clearances across the county between 1 February 2022 and 31 January 2023 while 1,408 incidents were investigated by the Neighbourhood Warden service.

Environmental CCTV units were deployed in 52 areas during the same period. Although these deployments made an impact on the number of fly tips investigated, data shows there is an increased demand for more CCTV units to cover more ground.

The council is match-funding the Commissioner’s grant through the funding of addition CCTV units and staff time to maintain and deploy the new equipment.

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