Fly-tipping success for Adur

In figures just released by the government, Adur District Council received top marks for its progress over the last six months

The council has sent out more warning letters, formal cautions and carried out more inspections for the period April to September, 2006, than the same period last year.

These inspections relate to legislation introduced last November, which means all householders are responsible for the way they dispose of their waste.

Under this "duty of care", people must ensure their rubbish is passed on to approved carriers only. Failure to do so can lead to fines of 5,000.

The figures released by DEFRA last week gave Adur council a grade one, "very effective for its work so far this financial year". Final figures for the year will be released next April.

Community and leisure services committee chairman, Keith Dollemore said: "This is good news and shows another aspect of the work we are doing to make Adur cleaner, greener and safer.

"It is better to try to reduce fly-tipping rather than be faced with trying to prosecute, which is extremely difficult and costly to council tax payers."

In September, figures released by Flycapture, the national database of fly-tipping incidents run by the government, the Environment Agency and the Local Government Association, made grim reading. It was revealed that despite more than 6,000 incidents of fly-tipping in West Sussex between April, 2005, and March, 2006, only three people in the county had been successfully prosecuted.

At the time, East Worthing and Shoreham MP Tim Loughton said he was disappointed there had been no successful prosecutions in the Adur district, although he recognised the difficulties facing local authorities in this matter.