Huge surge in fly-tipping amid fears West Lothian Council picking up tab on private land
dailyrecord.co.ukA huge surge in fly-tipping has been reported in a West Lothian community, with concerns are the council is picking up the tab for rubbish cleared from private land.The number of reports in and around the town of Whitburn and neighbouring village of Blackburn almost tripled over the final three months of 2023, compared to the same period in the year before.The council is only legally obliged to uplift fly-tipping on publicly owned land.
Landowners have to pay to have waste uplifted from their own.Chairing the committee, councillor Kirsteen Sullivan asked Eirwen Hopwood, a Parks and Woodland Manager, "Do we know how much is commercial?The manager said she had no breakdown beyond the figures presented but revealed that the number of reports had shot up to 95 in October-December from 37 in the last three months of 2022."It's a significant increase" she agreed.The cost of uplift rose to £4,733 for the 2023 third quarter, up from £2,503 in the same time frame for 2022.Overall, the total tonnage of fly-tipping lifted across West Lothian barely changed between the two years.- 66.34 in October to December last year compared with 66 in the last three months of 2022.Councillor Sullivan said: "The 2023 figure for the ward is dreadful.""It would be interesting to know if some of it is related to dumping on private land.
This is a bugbear of mine. There's so much fly-tipping on private land and the council ends up picking up the costs ."There's a particular issue at Heartlands with this.
Council services have been working closely not only with West Lothian Litter Pickers, but with some of the businesses out there to encourage them to put out more litter bins, but we have vast swathes of private land where there's stuff being dumped
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