Most people will be pleased to hear that the recommended maximum fines for fly tipping have been greatly increased. However, it’s interesting to compare the new fines for temporary and reversible damage to the physical environment with fines recently imposed for permanent and irreversible damage to the historic environment…..
The Heritage Journal 
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03/07/2014 at 15:43
Hobnob
Fly tipping is not minor vandalism, nor is it necessarily temporary. The people that fly tip are generally those that have the sort of waste that needs proper disposal such as asbestos, toxic chemicals and other nasty items. They choose to fly tip due in part to the fact it costs them money for proper controlled disposal or recycling, a cost they avoid but is passed on to us through tax increases or spending cuts. The fines need to be large to deter large scale fly tipping, leaving the have a go chancers to take the risk instead. I am sure we are all up in arms when we visit and ancient site and see litter or even wax effigies or other offerings so it is right that the government imposes such large fines otherwise we will end up looking like a waste strewn third world country.
03/07/2014 at 15:51
heritageaction
Agree with much of what you say. Our main point, as I’m sure you’ll understand, was that the man-in-a-van type of incident with a maximum fine of 100K looks pretty strange compared with so much less for bulldozing at Priddy.
03/07/2014 at 18:02
Hobnob
It is all about probability and outcome. If you have an event that has a high impact outcome as fly tipping does combined with a high probability, bought about by the sheer number of people who could potentially fly tip, then you have to have a high deterrent on the basis that this will for deter with the highest impact, the event and therefore the outcome.
Conversely, Priddy type events don’t happen that often so there is low probability and the impact is not felt by such a large part of the population so a smaller fine occurs as less people need to be deterred from carrying out the act.
04/07/2014 at 08:37
Epona
I wonder why Hobnob would feel he or she has to defend something that sounds (to me and HA at least) a strangely illogical system? Does that mean murders should get a minor sentence because not many people commit them and the affects are limited, while something common and relatively minor like shoplifting, affecting the price of goods for thousands, should get life! Fly tipping can be cleared up but you can’t put back a bulldozed henge, so the latter is quite a ‘high impact outcome’ especially as there are a limited number of henges in the world.
More importantly, it’s fallacious to imply it’s an either/ or situation. You can have high fines imposed for anything, how can it matter when it’s purely theoretical until someone commits the crime? It’s not costing anything to put a number on a piece of paper and set the bar!
12/07/2014 at 12:12
ObviousEnough
Fly tipping is a “crime” created almost entirely by attempts to tax waste disposal. It’s easy to stop; just stop charging for safe disposal. It’s incredibly annoying watching people rant about something which they created themselves.
12/07/2014 at 13:30
heritageaction
“Fly tipping is a “crime” created almost entirely by attempts to tax waste disposal.”
No, it’s a crime committed by criminals for money. It was created by no-one but them.