THE Bradford Green Party has launched a petition calling on Bradford Council to acknowledge a fly-tipping "epidemic" across the city - and to take urgent action.

It was started by Matt Edwards, Green Party spokesperson and prospective local election candidate for Tong Ward, an area which has been blighted by the issue. The petition, which has been slammed as "blatant electioneering" by the leading Labour Group, calls for Bradford Council to undertake a full review of the current strategy for tackling fly-tipping. Some measures the Green Party want Bradford Council to consider include a clampdown on landowners who leave derelict sites to become magnets for fly-tipping and a review of the current permit system for Household Waste Centres.

Mr Edwards said: “There isn't a part of our city that has escaped the problem of fly tipping. The Council's current strategy has failed and it is time for them to accept that and try new ideas. I have been getting new ideas from my Green colleagues across the country after looking to see how they tackle fly tipping in their communities."

The petition also calls for a reversal of the £500,000 cut to the street cleansing service.

“We know that the Council is buckling under the pressure of nearly a decade of ideological cuts from central government but this just goes to show how low fly tipping is down the leading Labour group’s priority for Bradford," Mr Edwards said.

According to Government data, in the 12 months to the end of March last year, there was a total of a 14,317 reports of fly-tipping incidents across the district.

Julia McGoldrick, from the Tong & Fulneck Valley Association, said: “People in and around Tong Village are fed up with the area being treated like a rubbish dump and there is a feeling that Bradford Council are unwilling to take the level of action that we need here."

Councillor Sarah Ferriby, Bradford Council's Executive Member for Healthy People and Places, said: "This is the same blatant electioneering we saw this time last year from the Greens just before the local elections. We don’t just talk, we take action. We’re having a Great Bradford Spring Clean and we’re doing this with communities all over the district.

"In our budget plan, we made it really clear that we are going to crack down not just on fly-tipping on council land, which we’ve always done, but also now on private land. We take fly-tipping culprits through the courts, hand out Fixed Penalty Notices and even crush vehicles which have been used for fly-tipping. This is our tough approach and it will continue. Next month’s decision-making Executive will have an item on making it easier to hand out Fixed Penalty Notices to householders who use illegal waste carriers who fly-tip their rubbish instead of disposing of it properly. People should not have to live with litter and fly-tipping, it’s an appalling blight caused by a selfish minority and it dents people’s pride in their communities."

Report fly tipping via 01274 431000 or www.bradford.gov.uk/flytipping. For the petition, visit bradford.greenparty.org.uk/flytipping or the Bradford Council ePetitions site.