A Fly-Tipping Blight
Newham Labour Facebook pages have been busy covering the appalling levels of fly-tipping in the borough.
They are right to be concerned, but not necessarily right about the solution.
There is criticism of the blame shifting between the council and residents. People just want the problem sorted. Our research suggests that the answer may be counter intuitive, but requires that the political leadership of the council becomes much more focussed on operational issues and less absorbed by political grandstanding.
Get the policy right and then make sure that it works.
Elsewhere we reflect upon the cost and efficacy of the services to control fly-tipping.
Why did fly-tip numbers go up and then down?
Firstly, something was happening between 2015-2018 that dramatically reduced the number of fly-tips.
Two things spring to mind:
The free bulky waste collection service. Despite it appearing to be the intuitive solution, it does not account for the pattern of reductions. Under the Wales regime the number of fly tips continued to fall, even after the charge was introduced.
The use of fixed penalty notices by the Enforcement Section. We are seeking to find the exact numbers but we are aware that Newham used these far more aggressively than any other borough. It is possible that they had a deterrent as well as a punitive effect. This was done alongside a proactive approach towards fly-tipping, visiting sites where rubbish was accumulating in gardens and on driveways. It is our suspicion that this has been discontinued and that the current plague is a result of a refusal to police the build-up of bulky waste. We will endeavour to find out.
As part of our enquiries we were able to unearth some private polling which was done for LBN by reputable external polling companies. We would like to see the same data for more recent years but we do not know if it is still collected and whether the council would be willing to share it.
Resident Satisfaction Levels for:
Street Cleansing
2002 31%
2017 65%
Refuse Collection
2002 52%
2017 81%
Road Repairs
2002 24%
2017 63%
What we do know from leaks in the scrutiny committees is that the catastrophic performance figures are NOT the fault of the current mayor or her administration. She has only had three years to fix a problem that apparently, wasn’t broken.
Nevertheless, dirty streets and the fly-tip blight are the fault of He-who-must-not-be-Named.
The current mayor IS NOT and NEVER WILL BE responsible for any of the failings of her administration.
Just to be clear.