Suspected fly tippers shamed with online photos

A west London council that says it has "had enough" of fly tipping has begun sharing CCTV images on social media, showing people allegedly being caught in the act of dumping rubbish in public places.

Hillingdon Council described the crime as a "blight" on the borough, and as a local authority, it had "allowed the problem to get bigger".

Cabinet member for community environment and enforcement, Adam Bennett, said the action was a "really good first step" adding: "We really need to up our game on all forms of of enforcement."

He said since its CCTV images were shared earlier this week they had over 850,000 views, received 2,500 comments including information on who the perpetrators might be.

Bennett said the reaction to the posts showed fly tipping was "a really important issue to residents".

Hillingdon Council says it issues a £1,000 fixed penalty fine to culprits, and last month it seized and crushed a vehicle that was linked to fly tipping.

"We've had enough as have residents, of the very small minority of individuals who choose to blight our neighbourhoods and communities by thinking it's acceptable to just dump their waste here on the pavement, on a verge, or on a lay-by."

He said by sharing images of suspects' faces the council was "taking action to try and bring the perpetrators to account".

Bennett added: "If you see your face on social media or perhaps on one of our screens in our libraries, our leisure centres, you're going to think twice about wanting to fly tip again."

Bennett explained that "a certain evidential threshold" had to be reached before identifying individuals online, but said as a council they did not want to "shy away" from the problem.

"If you're going to do it in Hillingdon, we're going to call you out for it, and we're going to take every opportunity we can to penalise you for what is unlawful environmental crime that blights the lives of our communities and all of the hard-working taxpayers in this country."

Liberal Democrat London Assembly committee member Gareth Roberts said he was "interested" to see if Hillingdon's tactics of "naming and shaming" individuals worked to prevent fly tipping.

"We need to use everything at our disposal to make sure that we clamp down on these people who think that they can simply trash London because they're too lazy to take things to the appropriate recycling or dumping sites," he said.

This week, City Hall's Environment Committee looked at how London boroughs are responding to the problem of fly tipping, as well as the overall coordination of the response to it.

Roberts said fly tipping is a "major problem" for London and explained there were nearly half a million incidents, across the capital, last year alone.

"Unfortunately clearing up this mess costs councils money and it costs Londoners money," he said.

"What we need is governments to recognise that there is a particular problem in London. We have more fly tipping than anywhere else and it would be great if they could find a way to give councils the money and the resources and the powers to tackle this scourge which is blighting parts of London."

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk