BRADFORD Council has been advised to only prosecute “the most serious” of fly tipping and littering cases due to the Court backlog created by Covid 19.

The pandemic led to the nation’s courts closing for weeks during the early days of lockdown, and in Bradford the court system is yet to reach its pre-Covid operation levels.

One consequence of this is that the Council’s waste enforcement team has been urged to only start court proceedings against the most serious of fly tippers.

This means just one case has been sent to the Authority’s legal services since late March.

On Tuesday members of Bradford Council’s Regeneration and Environment Scrutiny Committee will be given an annual update on fly tipping in the district, which will include details of how the pandemic has impacted the issue.

Van seized after being used in at least 10 fly tipping incidents

The report reveals that between March 2019 and April 2020, 3,688 complaints of fly tipping were recorded in Bradford and 3,878 tonnes of fly tipped waste and litter was collected by the Council.

Investigations into fly tipping and littering led to 1,620 “community protection warnings” being issued, 15 fly tipping fixed penalty notices and 24 prosecutions and cautions.

But members will be told that the pandemic has massively impact the work the Council is able to do to tackle fly tipping since April.

At the beginning of the pandemic wardens that would usually be dealing with the issue were re-deployed to the five Covid hubs in Bradford to instead take part in work including the delivery of food parcels, food shopping and undertaking welfare visits to vulnerable members of the public.

The report says: “The lack of wardens and enforcement staff meant that nearly all environmental enforcement work was suspended unless complaints were in relation to waste/rodents that posed a significant risk to public health.

“Any remaining service requests/ enforcement work was dealt with by managers.

“The risks of infection meant that the team could no longer deploy mobile CCTV cameras at residential or business locations and therefore all cameras were recalled.”

The closure of Council run tips led to an increase in fly tipping, but the report says: “Staff were unable to search through bags of rubbish to look for evidence due to the risk of infection.

“All formal Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) interviews were cancelled due to the pandemic which severely impacted on the team’s ability to investigate offences.

“The issuing of litter fines by staff was also suspended due to the risks of Covid transmission.”

Referring to problems with the court system, the report says: “The team was advised by Legal Services that due to the closure of the Magistrates Courts and the subsequent back log of cases that would need to be dealt with once the Courts opened again, that environmental enforcement prosecutions should only be prepared for the most serious of cases.

“As a result only one prosecution case has been sent to Legal Services since the pandemic started.”

But members will be told that work is “slowly returning to normal,” and last month a van that was involved in multiple fly tips in Bradford was seized and legal proceedings against the offender beginning.