South Holland’s new enviro-crime team has begun its operations.
Three employees of Kingdom PLC will be based at South Holland District Council’s Priory Road offices aiming to tackle fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and littering.
The company’s successful rates of prosecution at Boston Borough Council, where it has worked since 2015, saw it appointed here.
As part of the South and East Lincolnshire Local Council Partnership, South Holland has been added.
The three members of staff have already started training and Kingdom was awarded the contract which saw four companies bid for the work, a meeting of Spalding Town Forum was told last week.
The staff will wear uniform and have powers to hand out fixed penalty notices for a number of offences.
They will work in addition to the three existing community wardens already operating in South Holland.
The forum was also told Kingdom has a sister company which operates cameras which could be looked at in the future. There is also the scope to increase the number of staff in South Holland.
East Lindsey has a team of four, due to the larger area.South Holland’s head of public protection, Donna Hall, said: “They’ve been very successful in Boston where they’ve seen a reduction in some enviro-crime including fly-tipping.
“Training has begun and they’re just getting up to speed.
“They will be wearing body cameras which will constantly be compiling evidence.
“Education and engagement is quite important and we are looking at Kingdom’s resources, including training packages they have carried out with local schools.
“Initially they’ll be working Monday to Friday, but there’s flexibility in the contracts that we can ask them to work evenings and weekends.
“Part of the contract is income sharing and so a small percentage of fixed penalty notices comes back to the council.
Coun Anthony Casson said: “It’s all good stuff and not costing the council anything.
“It’s effectively a doubling of the staff the council had to tackle these issues before.
“It is also important members of the public report issues to us so the team knows where it should be focussing its efforts.”
The meeting heard that any fly-tipping on private land would still have to be cleared by the landowner, but the enviro-crime team could monitor the hot spots.
The council would also get regular updates on prosecution numbers and fixed penalty notices handed out.
