A 22-year-old Stafford woman has been handed a £1,000 fine for fly tipping on a nature reserve in the town. 

The woman and a male passenger were captured on CCTV taking several bags from her car and carrying it along a footpath leading to Doxey Marshes. The carrier bags of household rubbish were later found discarded on the marshes. 

The woman from the Sandon Road area of town was handed fixed penalty notices (FPN) totalling £1,000 for the offence in January. 

The CCTV footage from a resident was shared with Stafford Borough Council who were able to trace the offender. 

The FPNs are the first to be issued after the local authority increased fines for environmental crimes last month (February) - following a government crack-down on the national rise in littering, graffiti and fly tipping. 

Already this year ten fines have been handed out by the borough council for a series of environmental offences including fly tipping, fly posting and littering. And in January a man from Stoke on Trent was ordered to pay nearly £1200 by a Magistrates Court when a large amount of waste was dumped on a layby in the hamlet of Mill Meece, near Eccleshall. 

Councillor Ian Fordham, Cabinet Member for Environment, thanked the resident for coming forward with the CCTV footage and said the council required help from the public and businesses to clamp down on those illegally discarding rubbish. 

“Fly tipping, littering and other environmental crimes are a blight on our communities. They can cause environmental damage, they attract anti-social behaviour, make areas look untidy, and have an adverse impact on the quality of life for our residents. 

“Most of our residents are disgusted when people fly tip in their community. But we do need the support of the public to help us clampdown on litter louts - and I am grateful to the community-spirited resident who came forward to ensure we were able to find this fly tipper.” 

You can contact the council in confidence to report environmental crimes at grimewatch@staffordbc.gov.uk or 01785 619000. 

Press Release No 6108