A Burnham-On-Sea councillor has this week called on the town’s MP to issue a public apology after a “wildly inaccurate” attack on Somerset County Council in the House of Commons regarding the cost of fly-tipping.
Burnham North County Councillor Peter Burridge-Clayton claims MP Tessa Munt’s comments in Parliament before Christmas, reported here, were inaccurate and that the public deserves an apology.
Cllr Burridge-Clayton, pictured outside Highbridge’s Isleport Recycling Centre, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “The figure of £303,616 for the costs of cleaning up fly-tipped waste quoted by Tessa Munt can be derived from aggregating Defra’s estimated costs for clearing fly tips across England. This figure is based on national average rates and, while the numbers of fly-tipping incidents were reported to Defra by district councils, the costs of clear-up estimates have been made by Defra without reference to the councils.”
“The Defra figures estimating the cost of dealing with fly-tipping across England do not accurately reflect the true cost in Somerset. Defra’s figures quoted for the county are based on national average costs but Somerset’s councils have been able to do the job for significantly less.”
He added: “Based on actual average costs supplied by our five districts, Somerset Waste Partnership estimates an annual bill of £150,000 for fly-tipping in the year up to the end of last March.”
“£48,000 was reimbursed by the county council to the district councils to cover the additional costs in that year when fly-tipping rose, as we predicted – after charges and changes were implemented at recycling sites to achieve savings totalling £1.9 million per year.”
Cllr Derek Yeomans, Chairman of the Somerset Waste Board, said: “With fly-tipping levels across the county falling in 2012/13 – as we predicted – we expect the bill to be lower for the current year, including an aggregate of around £38,000 paid by SCC to district councils to meet their reducing overall costs.”
“Most critically, Somerset’s councils have throughout worked closely together to ensure the district councils do not have to pick up any extra financial burden as a result of the savings reluctantly called for by SCC, and to jointly tackle the criminal and anti-social behaviour that lies behind the problem.”
Cllr Burridge-Clayton added: “I am astonished that Ms Munt did not care to establish accurate figures before she made her statement to the House of Commons. We have seen in the past that inaccurate figures, once published, are often constantly recycled and re-used in the public debate, so I wanted to ensure the correct figures were made available to the residents of Somerset.”
“I would hope that given these facts Ms Munt will publically apologise – not only to the residents of Somerset but also to members of the House of Commons.”
