'Bring back the free skips' - How Mail readers want to see fly-tipping tackled in Hartlepool

Families have slammed those who blight the town with rubbish after an estimated cost for dealing with Hartlepool’s fly-tipping was revealed by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to be more than £500,000 since the 2011/2012 financial year.

The council issued 19 fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping in 2019 and has pledged its commitment to continuing to tackle the problem across the town.

Readers called for the council to reduce some charges, while others suggested re-introducing the use of free skips would encourage people to dispose of their waste properly and legally.

Here is how you reacted on the Hartlepool Mail Facebook page:

Andrea Vasey: “The council must make it as simple as possible for people to get rid of waste. There will always be the odd few who are still too lazy to take responsibility but it must be common sense to look at the cost of better waste collection facilities.”

Tom Smith: “Charging people to get rid of their rubbish is having an adverse effect.”

Katharine Anne Craggs: “I do not understand why you have to pay to put certain things in the tip or why you have to pay the council to take stuff away.”

Angela Horton Herring: “If the council provided skips in certain areas you would save a lot more than the costs of fly-tipping.”

Garry Captain Carden: “Charge people to use the tip, get fly-tippers.”

Suzanne Cooper: “Make the tip free … including for vans and monitor for a year. See what costs are then and decide.”

Mark Shadforth: “Once again the decent people who over pay council tax make up for the ones that won't or say they can't pay, then we have the fly-tippers who won't pay the extra fee for excess waste and once again the decent tax payers have to foot the bill.”

Leoni Mccarrick: “This has worsened since introducing fortnightly bin collection in my opinion.”

Jean Grey: “Bring back the free skips again it will stop all of this tipping.”