Some people have complained that the council is too quick to issue fines for minor business waste offences and that those fines are sometimes disproportionately high.
Now, Brighton and Hove City Council is trying to find better ways of working with businesses and to focus more on prevention than enforcement.
A report said: “The council has listened to feedback from residents and businesses who feel the current system penalises minor issues disproportionately while not having sufficient focus on more serious issues of environmental crimes that significantly impact the look and feel of our place.
“Feedback from businesses has also been that the council has been too quick to issue fines when there was instead an opportunity to support and educate.”
The report, to the council’s cabinet, which is due to meet next week, said that government guidance on fixed penalty notices (FPNs) and environmental crime enforcement “has emphasised the importance of proportionality, early intervention and graduated enforcement responses”.
The cabinet report said: “This aligns with a broader shift towards supporting behaviour change and away from over-reliance on punitive measures, especially for minor waste-related offences.
“Councils are increasingly adopting lower-tier penalties, early-payment incentives and improved evidence gathering, such as integrated CCTV, to increase fairness and payment rates while retaining the ability to take robust action against persistent or deliberate offenders.”
The council said that it planned to focus more on prevention though better advice and guidance to local businesses.
The council added: “Where enforcement does take place, it will be more targeted at the worst and most persistent offenders and we are expanding our use of CCTV to identify them.
“We are introducing lower-tier FPNs to better reflect more minor offences. The lowest fine for offences such as putting commercial waste in a domestic (communal) bin is currently £600 (for three to five 80-litre sacks or loose equivalent).
“This fine has been issued for single small items in the past and so we are now introducing two lower tiers – £300 for single items and £400 for one or two sacks or loose equivalent.
“This will mean that fines are more proportionate to the scale of the offence.
“The upper tier fines remain unchanged and we will continue to pursue egregious offenders via the courts.
“We’ll be running ‘surgeries’ to provide practical guidance on legal responsibilities and how to avoid common pitfalls that lead to enforcement action.”
Labour councillor Tim Rowkins, the council’s cabinet member for net zero and environmental services, said: “Brighton and Hove has an incredible variety of small independent businesses and we want to support them however we can.
“We’ve been listening to the feedback we’ve been getting on how the council conducts its enforcement and we are now proposing a new approach that gets away from issuing fines in favour of more support and better advice and guidance.
“We also want to adopt a more proportionate approach when enforcement is required.
“We are proposing the introduction of a lower tier of FPN (fixed penalty notice) for minor offences but also a more robust and intelligence-led approach to prolific and genuine offenders.
“We are expanding our use of CCTV to help us focus more on the offences that have a bigger impact.
“Our surgeries for businesses will not only help us to provide better guidance but will also be an additional opportunity for us to listen to their concerns and identify ways we can better support them.”
The council’s cabinet is expected to be asked agree changes to the council’s existing approach.
But the council said that it would still be taking “the high-profile none payers to court to get a clear message out to businesses that they have a legal duty to ensure that their waste is disposed of correctly and that failure to do so could result in them having a criminal record”.
Tim Rowkins has known about disproportionate bin fine concerns for years. Seems like he’s ‘listening’ a year away from when he is re-standing for election, and based on current polling, is likely to lose his seat.
Nayeb kebab still fly tip and have been fly tipping every night for years. The council refuse to do anything about it because it happens at 2am, yet drop a cigarette at 9am and it’s £600