Please be advised that Sutton Council will be rolling out an environmental enforcement programme starting on Monday 4 July 2016 to deal with environmental offences such as littering, dog fouling and fly tipping to help keep Sutton’s streets clean. The service will be provided by an external contractor, NSL. Officers will be uniformed, patrol in pairs and will visit all commercial centres and other locations across the borough. The service will operate every day of the week including evenings and weekends.
The enforcement officers will initially concentrate on littering and will issue fixed penalty notices to people who drop litter. Lots of people don’t realise it but chewing gum and cigarette butts dropped or disposed of on the ground and not in the bin is litter. Cigarette butts account for around 75 per cent of the content of litter cleaned up off the streets. The enforcement officers will also be visiting businesses to make sure that they have satisfactory arrangements in place for the collection and disposal of their waste. Businesses must only give their waste to registered waste carriers who will issue waste transfer notes for the waste they collect. Businesses must keep these notes for two years. Failure to produce Waste Transfer Notes when requested is an offence.
The enforcement officers will also be investigating fly tipping. Fly tipping can include waste placed out next to a street litter bin or placed out for collection at the wrong time, or dumped in a back alleyway. Officers will look for evidence in the waste and trace the waste back to the owner. The full set of offences and the penalties that will be applied are as follows:
• Littering – including chewing gum and cigarette butts – £80 or £50 with early payment discount
• Dog Fouling – £50 with no discount
• Flyposting – £75 or £50 with early discount payment
• Failure to produce waste documents (commercial waste) – £300 or £180 with early payment discount
• Fly tipping – £400 – no discount
• Unlicensed street trading – £150 – no discount
• Exposing vehicles for sale on a road – £100 or £60 with early payment discount
• Repairing vehicles on the road – £100 or £60 with early payment discount
A soft approach to enforcement will be taken in the first week with enforcement officers visiting target areas and talking to people about the offences. Full enforcement will commence week commencing 11 July.