AN OFFER of free support to tackle fly-tipping was refused by the borough council.

A meeting was initiated between Test Valley Borough Council and Martin Montague, owner and creator of the ClearWaste app, to see what help the company, which is based in the Meon Valley, could offer.

Cllr Celia Dowden had seen an advertisement on television for ClearWaste, a free online resource which can be used by members of the public to report fly-tipping.

ClearWaste was designed by Mr Montague to help people report an incident quickly, automatically establishing which local authority the area falls under, ensuring it goes to the right authority straight away.

Hampshire County Council already supports and promote the app as do many other local authorities however, when the idea was pitched to TVBC's head of services, the idea was not well received, and Mr Montague says he was met with uninterest.

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He said: "We found the council official we spoke to was uninterested in our offer of free help to combat fly-tipping in the area. He seemed to think they were already doing an excellent job.

"Test Valley Borough Council's own figures confirm that for 2020-2021 they dealt with 1,744 incidents of fly-tipping but issued no fines and had no successful prosecutions. I think that speaks for itself.

"The council can't use Covid as an excuse for their lack of enforcement either as there are similar sized local authorities (by population) that have far better records."

The Advertiser previously reported that fewer that one in ten incidents of fly-tipping in the borough resulted in prosecution.

Cllr Celia Dowden, who called for the meeting with Clear Waste in 2020, could not understand why the council did not accept the free support. She said: “The general thing portrayed was ‘we don’t need this, we do it our way and we don’t need your help’ really.

“I think at the time, ClearWaste were also exploring simpler measures to take people to court, like a short cut to help councils and they had been working with DeFra.

“It didn’t surprise me."

A spokesperson for Test Valley Borough Council said the help from ClearWaste was refused because the council have their own mobile app which provides a similar service.

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Portfolio holder, councillor Nick Adams-King, said: “Test Valley Borough Council has a zero-tolerance approach to fly-tipping, which means every single case reported to us is investigated. Recently, prison time, fines of thousands of pounds, and suspended sentences have all been handed down to the criminals who we have prosecuted. This work wouldn’t be possible without a successful reporting network, which is why residents can do this via many different means.

“We have the My Test Valley app, which members of the public can use to report fly-tips on their phones, or they are able to speak to us via the phone, anonymously, or via email. Residents have also used social media to speak to us about fly-tips, which is then fed back into our enforcement teams. The My Test Valley app is one that is used by a vast number of people in the borough, and as well as reporting fly-tips, it can also be used to report a missed bin collection and make payments to the borough council for various things.

“A number of TVBC’s councillors, including the leader, councillor Phil North and I are very active in encouraging reporting of fly-tipping by members of the public, either directly to the council, via the councillors themselves or on social media. Indeed evidence gathered directly by two of our borough councillors has been instrumental in obtaining successful prosecutions of fly tipping in the last few months.

“Therefore, at this point, with so many successful reporting options already available, including a mobile phone app, we don’t have need for a further reporting application, which operates in a similar way to many others.”

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Kimberley Barber