Vale MP Alun Cairns is urging all small business people in the Vale of Glamorgan to secure their commercial waste in light of recent fines issued to traders for minor waste infractions in Dinas Powys.
The MP was contacted by Janice Mapstone, of Valley View Fruit Store, in the Castle Drive shopping parade in Dinas Powys who is now subject to a £300 penalty charge notice, along with at least four neighbouring shops.
Mrs Mapstone informed the MP that an enforcement officer acting for the Council, dressed in a uniform not dissimilar to that of a police officer, entered her store on Friday and issued the fine for a breach of regulations concerning commercial waste.
The officer then, in under an hour, visited the other business premises on the shopping parade issuing further fines totalling over £2000.
Mrs Mapstone’s fine was issued specifically for “failure to ensure commercial waste receptacle is securely locked.”
She explained to the MP that, “I employ a youngster from the town to break down all of my cardboard packaging before it is sent back to the cash and carry depot. It is kept on private property, in my shop’s rear yard, but because the entrance to the yard is unsecured I have been issued with this fine.
“Another shop on the parade was issued with a fine for having just one black bag in the wrong place. I am appalled.”
Mrs Mapstone has been trading for 19 years, and is regularly visited by Environmental Health Officers, who have made no censure of her waste arrangements.
A neighbouring business on Castle Drive, A Class Apart, who sell school uniforms, were fined £600. They were fined £300 for not holding a waste transfer certificate, and another £300 for storing three black bags outside their back door containing inorganic waste.
Vale MP Alun Cairns is concerned that the private-sector enforcement officers, brought in by the Vale of Glamorgan Council earlier this year, may be ‘trigger happy’, making reference to fines that were incorrectly handed to dog owners on Barry Island in October.
He said, “I am disturbed by reports that enforcement officers acting for the Council are entering premises indiscriminately and handing out eye-watering fixed penalty notices for what appear to be very minor breaches of commercial waste regulations.
“If the Council had concerns about commercial waste in that shopping parade, it should have written to businesses setting out how to comply as a first step instead of immediately dispatching an enforcement officer to potentially ruin the Christmases of small business people struggling to make a living.
“If there were no prior concerns about waste reported to the Council, and this transpires to be an opportunist attempt to issue as many fixed penalty notices as possible, I will be very annoyed indeed.
“I have written to the local authority to ask why an enforcement officer was dispatched and why no prior attempt to ask traders to comply with regulations was made. I have also asked about the financial relationship between the Council and its private sector enforcement officers to establish whether a profit motive may have been involved in the issuing of so many fines in quick succession.
“In October enforcement officers acting for the Council were accused of being ‘trigger-happy’ after they issued fines incorrectly to dog-walkers on Barry Island for not having their dog on a lead. It transpired that no by-law prohibiting dogs from running freely existed there in the winter months and the fines were re-funded.
“I am concerned that the attitude towards enforcement in the Vale of Glamorgan has lost its sense of discretion, and that an attempt may be being made to maximise the number of fines issued.
“Until the Vale of Glamorgan Council clarifies this matter I urge all small business people to take extra care with their commercial waste and to ensure that they have the correct waste transfer documentation to hand in the premises.”