Lucy Rigby MP Column: Dealing with Northampton's fly-tipping epidemic

Fly-tipping has become part of daily life in too many parts of Northampton.  Mattresses dumped on verges; fridges left on footpaths; rubbish nobody clears up unless residents make enough noise – and even then you’re lucky. 

I can’t put it more bluntly than this: Northampton deserves better.  Residents deserve better.  From those that are committing this crime and from our local authority. 

The Prime Minister recently announced real help for towns like ours.  The package does two very important things.

First: serious deterrence against fly-tipping.  The Government is increasing the maximum fine to £5,000 - a fivefold rise on what it is currently - giving councils a far sharper deterrent to use against offenders.

Second: the principle that if you make the mess, you clean it up. The Prime Minister has launched a consultation on "clean-up squads," which would make fly-tippers do up to 20 hours of unpaid work, clearing the mess they cause.

The package does other things too.  It tightens the rules on who can hold a waste permit, and it strengthens how the Environment Agency and National Crime Agency work together - because serious waste crime is often organised crime, not just anti-social behaviour.  That matters here more than people might think.

The Chronicle & Echo recently wrote about Martin's Yard, off Spencer Bridge Road near the railway station. Because the land has historically operated under an environmental permit, it sits partly outside the council's own remit, which is exactly why the Environment Agency has now been brought in too.

This is precisely the kind of site the new measures from the Government are designed to address.  Permits that change hands or ownership will now face tougher checks, so criminals can't simply restructure a company to keep operating after enforcement action starts. Restriction notices and orders are being strengthened so regulators can step in faster and stop an operator resuming activity mid-investigation. 

But most fly-tipping in Northampton doesn't look like Martin's Yard.  It looks like bags of rubbish dumped in the wrong place, often alongside old and filthy furniture or white goods that have seen much better days. 

Semilong knows this better than most.  Last month, the Chron and BBC Northampton reported that the area has become a dumping ground for mattresses, old appliances and rubbish, and the council itself admitted that fly-tipping there had increased significantly. Anyone who lives nearby doesn't need the media or statistics to tell them that. They can see it on their street.

In February I walked Kingsley and Links View with residents from their Residents' Association, to see the scale of the problem for myself. What struck me wasn't just the mess, it was how long people had been living with it and how little had visibly changed. I wrote to the council afterwards to demand action on what I'd seen.

Part of the answer is prevention, not just enforcement after the fact.  When West Northamptonshire Council was created in 2021, neighbourhood wardens who once knew a single area were spread across the whole of West Northamptonshire between them. A warden who used to know one patch inside out now covers many. Funding is now rising every year under this Government, from £437 million this year to £462 million next year - the first multi-year settlement in a decade.  The Council should seriously consider bringing back the kind of local, visible presence rather than stretching it thinner still.

CCTV is the other gap. The Council has encouraged residents to send in doorbell and dashcam footage, and residents should absolutely help where they can. But local people already know exactly where the hotspots are, on their own street, on their walk to work or school. The council should be liaising with law enforcement on footage and/or putting cameras in if they’re needed, not waiting for someone else to catch the culprits for them.

It's working, when it's pushed. Recently the Chron's reporting on hotspots at Victoria Gardens and Greenwood Road led the council to give a landowner a deadline to clear the mess or face enforcement. That's what happens when a problem gets pointed at directly, and I'd like to see it happen without this newspaper having to ask first. West Northamptonshire Labour Councillors have been campaigning on this issue, regularly reporting and sharing pictures of terrible fly-tipping throughout Northampton.

West Northamptonshire Council now has the power to raise fly-tipping fines to £5,000. The tools are there, for the small-scale dumping and the serious, organised sites alike. I hope West Northamptonshire Council, and the agencies working alongside it, put them to full use.

To come back to where I started: Northampton deserves better and the waste crime epidemic that has gone on far too long needs dealing with - now.