Oil fly-tippers will face prosecution, council vows

Fly-tippers who left barrels of oil on a rural road will face prosecution if identified, confirms a council.

Around 100 drums were dumped on Hollyfast Lane on the outskirts of Coventry in July.

Councillor John McNicholas said Coventry City Council was "seeking to prosecute" those responsible for the incident, which he described as "industrial pollution" and one of the worst of its kind seen locally.

"We've looked into things like the bar codes on the oil containers, but it's going to be very difficult to actually deal with that," he told the scrutiny co-ordination committee.

Hollyfest Lane was closed while council workers removed oil that covered the road after several plastic barrels leaked. They spread sand to soak up the remaining oil, and it took a further two days to resurface the road.

McNicholas told the committee that local people had a role to play in helping catch those responsible.

"They know the spots where these things are being dumped. We need them to tell us, and we will deal with it in the best way that we possibly can."

The Labour councillor added that he was working to get more fly-tipping enforcement officers to "ensure that we can respond to these fly-tipping areas as best we can".

A report to the committee said the council was planning a more visible response to tackle the issue.

That will include prevention-led and intelligence-led approaches, while solar-powered CCTV towers and pods are also being considered to monitor known hot spots.

Opposition councillors said the council's own data showed that fly-tipping incidents in Coventry had risen by 40% compared with pre-Covid pandemic levels, while just 3% of cases resulted in a prosecution or other enforcement.

Reform UK members said they were unconvinced by claims that the increase in cases was due to more people reporting incidents and called for a more detailed analysis of the available data.

Conservative councillor Mattie Heaven claimed that the authority appeared to be gathering more data but had not stepped up efforts to tackle illegally dumped rubbish.

She told the committee: "Last year we set out to be more transparent on fly-tipping, and now we have got to get more data for 2027, so we have not really moved forward from an enforcement aspect from last year to this year.

"All we have done is just counted more numbers for fly-tipping, so maybe we need to review the whole enforcement."

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