Council prevent major fly-tipping incident in north Liverpool

An undercover operation by Liverpool City Council (LCC) has prevented thousands of tonnes of waste being dumped in a warehouse.

Criminals had broken into an empty warehouse in north Liverpool and bypassed the electrical supply to install a lighting system.

In an effort to hide their plans, they created false advertisement boards to suggest that it was a legitimate waste operation.

The major incident was prevented by  LCC’s Neighbourhood Services team and supported by the Joint Unit for Waste Crime and Merseyside Police.

With help from the public notifying local agencies, significant environmental damage was avoided. There could have been rat and fly infestations and a rise in public cost to safely clear the site.

Councillor Liam Robinson, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhood Services, said: “I’d like to thank those who alerted the authorities to this very serious fly tipping incident, as they have prevented a major environmental problem and saved the city council a small fortune in clearance costs.

“The city council has been investing in CCTV to help catch fly tippers, but we can’t film everywhere so we need the public to be our eyes and ears as well.”

LCC have been using their Twitter profile to shame fly tippers that they’ve caught on CCTV, revealing to other users how much they have been fined.

The city was deemed the ‘fly tipping capital’ in 2018 but has since enjoyed successful progress in ridding the title.

LCC have greatly increased their efforts since Councillour Abdul Qadir revealed in early 2022 that Liverpool spends around £2million a year on tackling fly tipping.

A spokesperson for the Environment Agency said: “We would like to thank members of the public that reported this case to us. Timely reporting allowed us to stop significant harm to the environment and save the public purse substantial clean-up costs.

““It is illegal to leave waste on public or private land which does not have either an environmental permit or a registered exemption. That’s why we are determined to make life hard for criminals who dismiss the law, by disrupting and stopping their illegal activity.

“We will continue to work tirelessly to tackle environmental crime and are committed to ensuring that appropriate environmental standards are adhered to.”

Any concerns of fly tipping can be reported anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or reported via the Gov.uk website.

Featured image © Liverpool Express