Vale of White Horse District Council
Abbey House, Abbey Close,
Abingdon, OX14 3JE
Email: comments@whitehorsedc.gov.uk
Telephone: 01235 520202

Vale of White Horse District Council

What are environmental crimes and what is the Council doing to tackle them?

Environmental crimes - also known as “envirocrimes” – are offences that damage the local environment. They include fly-tipping, graffiti, littering and dog fouling.

Since the summer of 2007 the Council has been taking tougher action on people caught carrying out envirocrimes. The new enforcement action includes issuing fixed penalty notices, or on-the-spot fines, to people caught committing such offences.

The new powers to issue fixed penalty notices for environmental crimes were made available to local councils through the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005.

The Vale consulted with the public over its plans to use these new enforcement powers and received strong support for the proposals to use fines to tackle problems such as litter and dog-fouling.

The concerted push to tackle environmental offences links into the Council’s priority to “create a cleaner, greener safer and healthier community and environment.”

More details about the Council’s plans to improve local environmental quality can be found in the Local Environmental Quality Enforcement Strategy, which can be downloaded from the right of the page.

This document sets out the range of enforcement powers available to officers and how they will be used. For more information see What can people be fined for and how much are the fines?