A JOINT operation between three council districts and Essex Police is being planned to crack down on fly-tipping reports the Local Democracy Reporter.

The council, which spends more than £140,000 a year on fly-tipping collection, has blamed criminal gangs for the problem, which has doubled in the last two years to more than 1,400 incidents a year.

Brentwood Council says it deals with three to four fly-tips every day. It says there has been a steady increase in commercial fly-tips across the borough, occurring mainly in rural areas, particularly Navestock.

Between 2012 and 2020, the numbers across the borough fluctuated between just over 400 and just under 800 a year.

However, it has risen sharply since then, doubling in just the last two years to over 1,400 incidents per year.

The council has now said it is working towards an adjoining operation between Brentwood, Epping, Havering and Essex Police to crack down on gangs depositing waste—some of which is toxic and needs to be cleaned up by specialists.

Paul Brace, interim director for communities and health at Brentwood Borough Council, told a meeting on December 2: “There will be a meeting between Brentwood, Epping Forest Havering and the police around a joint operation to try and reduce [fly-tipping].

“We are making great strides forward in actually getting to the bottom of who is causing this blight to some parts of the borough.

“In the next couple of months, we’ll have a program in place in stopping some of that coming in and catching some of those who are doing it, which is organised crime, so we can stem it before it gets here.”

In July, Brentwood Council appealed for help in tackling organised gangs illegally dumping waste, including thousands of gallons of toxic sludge that cost £25,000 to clean up.

In the six months up to May 2024, the borough saw 621 incidents of fly-tipping, the same number recorded between April 2017 to April 2018.

The council said in April this year that an unprecedented number of large-scale fly-tips, with large fuel tanks each containing up to 1,000 litres of waste oil product, were dumped in Warley—two in Green Lane, two in Home Farm Road, and one in Beredens Lane.

At Home Farm Road, one of the tanks split as it crashed to the ground after being pushed off the back of a flatbed truck.

This resulted in the closure of the road and an extensive clean-up operation, costing the taxpayer thousands.

The cost of these fly-tips alone has been estimated at £25,000, although Essex County Council will cover the disposal costs, which are in the region of £12,000.

In January a huge pile of up to 20 tonnes of “potentially hazardous waste” was dumped in the South Weald country park car park in Brentwood – a popular beauty spot and a school drop-off and pick-up point.

Leader of Brentwood Borough Council Councillor Barry Aspinall said: “This has been an ongoing battle against organised criminal gangs and others that have been plaguing our borough for an awfully long time .

“This was the subject of my very first meeting in this chair and it hasn’t gone away in fact some of it has got worse.

“We have had more fly tips than in the past, and we are looking at this from all angles to assist cleanup quicker and prevent and prosecute if people are caught.”