South Gloucestershire Council

Published: 19/09/2016

South Gloucestershire Council officers will be working alongside the police to carry out stop checks on vehicles carrying waste along two major routes, the A4174 ring road and A403 Severn Road.

We are launching a new campaign to help stop rubbish littering the district’s highways, a problem which costs the authority tens of thousands of pounds a year and can cause major disruption to the transport network through road closures to clear the waste.

We will be working in conjunction with Avon and Somerset Constabulary to target vehicles transporting waste. Police officers will carry out stop-check inspections of vehicles and our envirocrime enforcement officers will offer advice and investigate the potential prosecution of any driver and waste operator found to be in breach of the law.

Cllr Heather Goddard, Chair of the Environment and Community Services committee, said: “We have a zero tolerance approach to anyone caught littering our highways.
“We spend tens of thousands of pounds each year cleaning up litter from roadside verges, which is a burden to our council tax payers as they bear the brunt of these costs.
“We also have to close off parts of this busy road at certain times of the year in order to carry out the clean-up operation safely, leading to major disruption for motorists.”

Waste carriers have a legal duty of care to take all reasonable steps to prevent waste escaping from their vehicles.

All registered operators in the district, and those from neighbouring authorities which are known to travel through the area, have been provided with advice and information on their responsibilities prior to this operation.

As a council, we spend £50,000 a year cleaning up litter and waste from the A4174 ring road which is dropped from cars and lorries. The road has to be closed to facilitate clean-up operations, causing severe disruption and inconvenience to motorists.

South Gloucestershire Council is one of the only authorities in the country to have successfully prosecuted companies under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 for failing to take reasonable steps to ensure waste is transported legally. In 2011, construction and waste management firm Smiths of Gloucester was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay costs of £18,336 and a £15 victim surcharge.