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‘Fly-tipping capital’ title paints ‘distorted’ picture of Strabane district, says council official

Thursday, 5 January 2012

Problems continue, however, as rubbish dumped at cemetery.

STRABANE District Council is considering pulling out of a scheme which monitors fly-tipping, after it was dubbed Northern Ireland's 'fly-tipping capital'.
Figures compiled on a database operated by private company Flycapture - and managed by the Environment Agency - put Strabane district top of the league table, with 827 incidents over 2010/11.
The next worst area was Newtownabbey, where there were 427 incidences, nearly half the yearly total experienced in Strabane. Larne followed with 201, Ballymena with 159, Armagh with 122, and Banbridge, 39.
Malcolm Scott, Strabane District Council's chief technical officer, said the figures painted a very 'distorted' picture, given that only six councils in Northern Ireland have signed up to the database. In light of that, he disputed the unenviable title of 'fly-tipping capital'.
“That's a press comment. We are just the highest of the six councils that are signed up to the database," he said. "I do not think Strabane is the worst council area - or that it is any worse than any other council area.
“If we are going to get this title, you would wonder is it worthwile forwarding this evidence?"
He added: "I still have not seen a copy of this report. If we are doing the returns, they should be issuing a copy of the report to us. I would question, do we continue doing this?"
Yet he concedes fly-tipping is "obviously a problem" for the district.
Overall waste management continues to maintain a monopoly on Strabane District Council's finances. At the end of last year, the Strabane Weekly News revealed that the local authority will spend more than £3.3m to dispose of waste by the end of the financial year in April. Nearly £1 million of that is channelled into cleaning the district's streets. The figures were described as "shocking" by chairman of the council's environment committee, councillor John Donnell.
Headache
Meanwhile, fly tipping continued to prove a headache for the local authority over the festive period, after waste was dumped at the town's cemetery last week. Local councillor, Jay McCauley, described it as a "major incident", which caused distress to people visiting the graves of loved ones.
“The rubbish was transported and dumped there on [Wednesday] December 28, a day that the council dump itself was open, which makes matters even worse," he said yesterday (Tuesday).
“Given the quantity and nature of the rubbish dumped at the graveyard, it could only have been transported there by a vehicle. People visiting the graves of loved ones were distressed and angered that anyone could have been so insensitive and disrespectful to do such a thing," he added.

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