THE Government needs to take urgent and positive action to tackle the increasingly difficult menace of fly tipping - particularly where it involves hazardous waste dumped on private land -according to the CLA, the rural economy experts.

The comments follow a meeting between CLA experts and Defra Minister, Joan Ruddock, at which she agreed to look into ways of making it possible for farmers and landowners to have fly-tipped waste accepted at appropriate local tips.

CLA South West Director, John Mortimer, said that land managers who had already made every attempt to keep fly tippers out should not be penalised by costly clear up bills.

The Government's own figures estimate that private owners and managers are currently footing a £50 million a year bill for clearing up rubbish which is illegally dumped on their land yet ministers recently decided to block a ten minute rule Bill, introduced by Bernard Jenkins MP, which would have brought about a fundamental - and much needed - change in the law.

The CLA is campaigning for a change in the law so that the burden of cost will not be left on the doorstep of private land managers.

Under the Environmental Protection Act (1990) waste dumped on public land is removed by the local authority or the Environment Agency - but there is no such protection for private land owners and managers and those who are fly-tipped can be threatened with prosecution unless they pay for the waste to be removed.

"The Minister sympathised with us over the costs our members face in dealing with dumped hazardous waste - but she still resisted our argument that clean up costs should fall elsewhere, not on private landowners. We say that where a private individual has taken all possible action to prevent waste being dumped in the first place, the cost should be met by the Environment Agency or the local authority," said Mr Mortimer.

The CLA argue that all fly-tipping offenders should be vigorously pursued and the Minister gave assurances that she will be raising the issue with the Environment Agency and with Local Authorities.

"This is a problem which is not going to go away. Increased costs of commercial disposal coupled to changes in domestic refuse collections have combined to aggravate the problem. There are issues beyond the direct costs which relate to pollution, tourism, health and safety and risks to livestock as well as the wider aesthetic impact. The law, as it stands, is unfair to land managers who have already made every attempt to keep fly-tippers out," said Mr. Mortimer.

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