Agenda item

To consider the report (attached).

J Chandler, Service Director (Community and Partnerships) provided the following update in place of R Gardiner, Service Manager (Community Resilience).

A detailed report on Environment and Neighbourhoods (EN) Enforcement Activity for 2018 had been published in the agenda. Fly-tipping caused one of the highest pressures in the Epping Forest District. This could be a black bag carelessly dumped by a resident to an industrial sized fly-tip by organised criminal fly-tippers.

Noise nuisance was the second busiest area of work and could be as a result of dogs barking, loud music or at properties that had poor sound insulation. There had been unauthorised encampments on Council land where EN officers had dealt with twelve sites and thirty incidents or concerns that had been registered.

Officers continued to carry out inspections of taxis to ensure they were licensed by the Council and were operating correctly. The team also investigated other noise nuisance issues, such as smoke, dust, odour, dog fouling, litter and light nuisance.

As part of the enforcement role, EN officers aimed to be proactive and educate residents and businesses to avoid causing environmental / nuisance issues and comply with the law. The Council promoted the Essex wide Crime not to Care Campaign in partnership with the Cleaner Essex Group and Keep Britain Tidy. Police officers had been increasing stop checks of vehicles to catch people before they dumped waste or were in the processing of fly-tipping.

Councillor S Neville said that for managing fly-tipping, the District was sub-divided into three main areas, East 1 and 2, South 1, 2 and 3, and West 1, 2 and 3. However, which areas did they represent and was the work equally divided? J Chandler replied that staff resourcing was adjusted to deal with fly-tipping incidences when they occurred and divided up according to the number of ongoing cases. Unfortunately she did not know offhand the areas these covered, but would provide a reply.

For information, the areas were detailed below:

·      East 1: North Weald, Ongar, Thornwood, Lower Sheeting, Moreton, Fyfield

·      East 2: Epping, Theydon Bois, Lambourne

·      South 1: Loughton (town)

·      South 2: Buckhurst Hill, The Broadway

·      South 3: Chigwell

·      West 1: Nazeing, Roydon

·      West 2: Waltham Abbey North

·      West 3: Waltham Abbey South

For any queries relating to these areas, please email Contactus@eppingforestdc.gov.uk, or report via the Council’s website at https://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/crime-and-safety/ as then it could be allocated to the correct officer (due to officers being on leave, and dynamic allocation of work). If a map was wanted, with officer contact details, this could be provided.

Councillor S Neville asked if the EN team had sufficient resources to do all the work. J Chandler replied that if you asked R Gardiner then he would probably say that if he had more resources he would do more work.

Councillor M Sartin asked what the cost of fly-tipping was to the Council over the year. Q Durrani replied that he would supply this information after the meeting as some costs were included as part of the Council’s Waste Management contract. Also highway land removal costs would be covered. The Waste and Recycling Manager, D Marsh, added that any third party waste that the Waste Contractor picked up, would be a cost to the Council and that the costs were rising. Some large fly-tips had cost £7,000 to clear up. Also there were incidences of criminal fly-tippers who would load waste into articulated trailers, drive along the M25 and M11 motorways, e.g. to North Weald, find a place where they could unhitch their trailer and drive off, but leave the trailer behind. It was also reported that caravans had also been filled with waste and then dumped.

Councillor M Sartin said she had tried to see how difficult it was to report incidences online, but had not succeeded at all. Q Durrani replied that he would look into this and come back to her. For information, fly-tipping could be reported through the two weblinks below:

·      https://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/recycling-and-rubbish/report-dumped-rubbish-and-fly-tipping/

·      https://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/crime-and-safety/

Councillor M Sartin asked about licensed taxi drivers but had heard that Uber drivers would drive around airports waiting for bookings. Councillor N Bedford commented that he was not sure how Uber drivers operated. J Chandler explained that licenced taxi operators, including Uber, operated a “pre-book” private hire vehicle and, as long as they did not pick up without being pre-booked, there were no legal issues with this.

Councillor N Bedford was pleased that the Council had been successful in the prosecution of a large fly-tip and asked if the Council could seize vehicles to recover more costs. J Chandler replied that she would ask R Gardiner if this was a feasible option and provided the following response. The Council had the powers to seize vehicles and the logistics of this were being looked into. For larger scale fly-tips, this would be led by the Environment Agency and the Police.

Councillor N Bedford said that the way noise complaints were logged by EN officers, six or seven reports could be attributed to one incident. Why were complaints not logged under the incident and further or repeat complaints attributed back to the original incident? J Chandler replied that multiple complaints logged about one incident were mapped under the respective property, or on a master worksheet.

Councillor N Bedford asked how long would a Noise Abatement Notice last for and was it issued to a person or served on a premises. J Chandler replied that Noise Abatement Notices were served on the person(s) responsible, not against the premises. For example, if a pub changed management/licensee, the Noise Abatement Notice would cease to be in force, unless one of the persons who was in receipt of the Abatement Notice remained in any form of control at the property. However, if there had been no incidents for a number of years, the Council might not enforce immediately should a breach be witnessed without first contacting the person responsible, to remind them that the Abatement Notice remained in force.