Fly-tipping cost could be shown on signs - council

Signs letting taxpayers know how much fly-tipping was costing them would be a good way to get more people reporting the crime, a councillor has said.

The suggestion was made as councillors in Bradford were given an update on the issue at a meeting where officers were asked how to tackle the issue.

Conservative councillor Chris Herd asked: "Do we know what fly-tipping is costing us? Could we put up signs saying 'fly-tipping in this area has cost the taxpayer £40,000 – that money could have been used on something you really need'?"

Responding, Amjad Ishaq, environmental services and enforcement manager, said: "We need to try to get the public to work with us on it because it's costing a fortune."

Mr Ishaq added that fly-tipping in the Bradford district was "a huge problem".

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, councillors were told that although the number of reports of fly-tipping in Bradford had risen from 10,193 during the previous financial year to 10,624 this year, the tonnage collected by the council had actually fallen from 4,803 in 2023-24 to 4,000 in the current financial year.

A report said that in many cases, the council received multiple reports for the same fly-tipping incident.

Herd told the meeting that fly-tipping was "basically human negligence – it is people being bad".

Independent councillor Rizwan Saleem said that while fly-tipping was "not just a Bradford issue, it's an everywhere issue", he added that he was "fed up of seeing mattresses at the bottom of my street".

"We need to catch the people doing it or they will keep doing it over and over again," he said.

"A lot of residents know where the waste comes from, but don't want to grass up their neighbour."

Councillor Sarah Ferriby, executive for healthy people and places, said the authority would regularly release details of prosecutions or seizures of vehicles used by fly-tippers.

"It is important to get that message out that it is not acceptable behaviour," she said.

"We need to get the messaging out that people should show good behaviour disposing of their waste correctly and are not putting the burden on their own communities."

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