A crackdown on illegal dumping across Stoke-on-Trent has seen a 100-day target to clear 1,000 cases reached in less than half the time.
In June, Daily Focus reported that Stoke-on-Trent City Council had pledged to tackle the scourge of illegally dumped waste, which was blighting businesses and communities, with a £260,000 funding boost.
The plan was supported by investment through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, extra CCTV cameras that can be deployed in hotspot areas, additional clean-up crews, new enforcement officers and two new 3.5 tonne clean-up tipper vans.
The investment was also backed by a high profile, zero tolerance campaign to use photos of dumped rubbish, name the streets and show where identification of the culprits has resulted in them being issued a £400 spot fine.
Now, more than 1,000 incidents of illegal dumping have been cleared in fewer than 50 days – less than half the time pledged.
Council Leader Jane Ashworth said: “After taking office in May, we vowed to quickly review council services, and the backlog of illegal dumping cases that our hard-working environment teams were facing immediately became glaringly obvious.
“In May, we were faced with the reality of a backlog of 560 illegal dumping incidents, added to a further estimated 500 unreported incidents with a turnaround time of 30 days from reporting to clearing. We put in place swift action to tackle that.
“The teams have delivered and since 20 June, 1,123 incidents have been cleared. This campaign is delivering, and in less than half the time we pledged.”
The number of incidents cleared equates to 689 skips full of rubbish, removed from back alleys, street fronts and community spaces right across the city.
Now the authority is focusing its efforts on working with residents to keep communities clean, while still taking a zero-tolerance enforcement approach to dumped waste.
A campaign is launching today (Tuesday) to educate people on what waste goes in what bin, how to book waste collections and how to access the two household recycling centres in the city.
