Since commencing use of CCTV and regular reporting to the council, enforcement action has been taken and the problem has dramatically reduced. Half of all flytipping incidents captured on CCTV were the responsibility of one couple, who are not no longer dumping here. Unfortunately, Christmas 2025 has been rather a busy time for flytippers, but the CCTV has picked up all the new – presumably “once a year” offenders.
For data protection reasons we are not including identifiable data here but CCTV recording of these incidents is available to the enforcement department of the local authority and police.
The problem
For many years the centre and its users endured a constant, almost daily, stream of domestic and commercial waste of all kinds being dumped around the recycling bins at the entrance to our centre, with the problem also spilling over into our carpark and our grounds. This included food waste, broken glass and other hazardous items, furniture, clothing, and bedding. This dumping was unpleasant for everyone who used the centre and its grounds, and sometimes a health hazard. We wanted to stamp out this problem in order to make our community space more attactive and safe.
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Fly tipping is a crime
Fly tipping refers to the illegal dumping of items. It can be as small as a single bag. It includes dumping any items (recyclable or otherwise) in the area around the community recycling bins, or using those bins to dump non-recyclable rubbish. Fly tipping can result in a fixed penalty of up to £500, a criminal record, a court fine or even imprisonment.
We are aware that anti-social people, including those who do fly tipping, may try to put our cameras out of action. Vandalism to any of our cameras would be captured both by other cameras on site and any camera being targeted, with images continuously uploaded online. Footage of any such criminal damage or attempted criminal damage would be submitted to the police.
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Your privacy
Data Privacy Impact Assessment. This wasapproved by the public at our AGM as a proportionate response to the problem.
We are aware that the use of CCTV can result in an unfortunate loss of privacy for people whose activities are entirely lawful. We are trying to minimise this. Only the Trustees and Committee of the centre have any access to video taken by the cameras. We are only seeking to record evidence of criminal behaviour and we delete images captured on our CCTV that do not suggest this.
We do not publish identifiable information or footage showing those involved in criminal activity. We supply the video footage only to the relevant statutory agencies and we delete it when their investigation is complete. If any images of uninvolved members of the public are incidentally captured in footage suggesting anti-social activity, we crop out these images before submitting footage to the council.
Our data privacy statement gives more information about how we handle data that may identify individuals, including CCTV footage.
We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office and subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
We welcome comments from any person with an interest or concern about these or any other matters of relevance to the Centre and will be happy to discuss any concerns or suggestions.