Defra Minister offers CLA support in getting fly-tipped waste accepted by council tips

Defra Minister Joan Ruddock agreed to a CLA request to consider how it could be made easier for farmers and landowners to have fly-tipped waste accepted at their local tips.

In a meeting with rural economy experts the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), the Minister was also sympathetic to the financial burden landowners face in dealing with dumped hazardous waste.

However, she resisted the CLA's call for the relevant authority to be responsible for clearing all incidents of fly-tipped waste that a landowner could not have prevented. The

The CLA highlighted a number of occasions where vigorous pursuit of fly-tipping offenders is clearly needed. The Minister gave the CLA assurances that she will be raising the issue with the Environment Agency and Local Authorities.

The CLA is campaigning for an amendment to the Environment Protection Act 1990 to ensure that landowners are not held responsible for the clearing-up costs when hazardous wastes, such as asbestos, are fly-tipped.

CLA President Henry Aubrey-Fletcher said: "The law as it stands is unfair to landowners who have already made every attempt to keep fly-tippers out.

"Most landowners accept the need to clear up ordinary household waste from time to time but they should not be expected to pick up the far greater tab for tipping of hazardous waste."

The CLA will be continuing to lobby Government to act on two fronts:

• Introducing a requirement to investigate all allegations of fly-tipping. At the moment it is easy for local authorities and the Environment Agency to simply force the landowner to clear up fly-tipped waste, rather than go to the trouble of finding the perpetrator themselves,

• Acting on the particular problem of hazardous waste, especially asbestos. The costs of clearing up asbestos are enormous, as is the risk of the land becoming contaminated and water being polluted. It is unreasonable to expect a landowner to pay these costs when he has done everything within his power to keep the fly-tippers out.

The CLA says that if a landowner has done everything to prevent hazardous waste being tipped it should be for the Environment Agency to clear it up and prosecute those responsible.

The Government previously blocked an attempt by MP Bernard Jenkin to amend this law through a 10-minute rule Bill that came before Parliament on March 11.