This is the moment a white van was lifted off a Bristol street by the city council – because whoever owned it had been reported for flytipping two days earlier.
Bristol City Council ’s Neighbourhood Enforcement team used little-known powers in the 1990 Environmental Protection Act, which gives them the right to seize any vehicle suspected of being involved in an environmental crime like flytipping.
And the council issued a warning to anyone involved in dumping waste that this could happen to them too – and there would be nothing they could do about it.
The council’s Neighbourhood Enforcement team received a report that tyres had been dumped at a spot in South Bristol, and a vehicle involved was traced to an on-street parking area at The Brambles in Hartcliffe.
The white transit van, which had foreign number plates, was located and the council’s team went there on Monday afternoon at 3.30pm and seized the vehicle, lifting it onto a vehicle transporter.
The council said it was doing so under section 34b of the 1990 Environmental Protection Act, which gives authorised officers – including council officials investigating fly-tipping – the right to search or seize any vehicle if a flytipping offence has been committed, the vehicle was used in the commission of the offence and proceedings for that offence have not yet been brought, or if the vehicle is about to be used or is being used in a flytipping offence.
To get the vehicle back, the owner has to make a claim in person to the council’s offices at 100 Temple Street, near Temple Meads station. The council’s Neighbourhood Enforcement team urged people to ‘always use a registered waste carrier to collect rubbish’.