A couple were left fuming after they were handed a £400 fine because they put their bins out at the wrong time.
Carla Grande and John Rowe, from Walthamstow, London, were slapped with the massive fine for "fly tipping” - prompting them to challenge the council over the fine.
The filmmaker and her partner put their bins outside at the wrong time of day after mistakenly counsulting part of the council’s website which does not show specific collection times.
The blunder occurred soon after they had move in - but there was no sympathy from enforcement company 3GS.
Now the couple has slammed the company as "bullies" and says they sent them "round and round in circles” when they tried to have their fine reviewed.
Speaking at a council climate change scrutiny committee on 27th March, 32-year-old Carla urged the council to make its "harsh rules” on collection times clearer and to review how 3GS deals with appeals.
She said: "I feel there is no clear way of appealing or representing when you’re issued a fine[…] 3GS are essentially carrying out a third-party process.
“They are bullies to put it simply, they tell you to go to the council and you go round and round in circles.”
Emails from 3GS, shared with the Local Democracy Reporting Service, show the enforcers repeatedly demanding the £400 payment without ever showing evidence they had reviewed the couple’s case.
After numerous emails to 3GS, the council, her local councillors and MP, Carla said the council agreed to reduce the couple’s fine to £150, the amount issued for littering offences.
Eventually, an anonymous council officer admitted that this was because the couple’s bin bags were "intended to be collected” rather than deliberately fly-tipped.
Carla told the committee: "I would like justification as to why this is, I believe that it’s because I am not going to give up. If it’s a littering fine, it should be a littering fine from the start, not a fly-tipping fine for putting bags out, not after sending emails for two-and-a-half months thinking I’m going to court.”
Director of neighbourhoods Jarlath Griffin said it would be "really difficult” to specify waste collection times on each household’s portal on the council’s website.
He added: "There are about 72 clear-all routes in the borough where residents put their waste out, the service goes through and reminds properties through a range of means how to go about this.
"The system has been the same system for five to ten years now, we’ve never really changed it from Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and we try to keep it the same as we go through the whole process.”
Contrary to Carla’s experience, Jarlath claimed that 3GS offers "a way” of challenging fines it issues on behalf of the council which is "managed carefully”.
The senior officer admitted the £400 fines for fly-tipping are "quite expensive” but did not address Carla’s call for the council to justify why it does not issue residents with £150 littering fines instead.
In January this year, Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy said her office had begun "monitoring the experiences” of residents trying to appeal fines after "regularly” receiving complaints.
Her team advised residents to challenge the fine directly before approaching her for help.
Figures obtained under freedom of information laws show that, in 2022, 3GS and the council issued 4,751 fines for “litter-related offences”.
However, just over half of those fines have been paid, bringing in only £362,500 – a significant drop from the £1.2m made in 2021. While 217 fines were cancelled by the council, each month an average of 100 fines issued by 3GS are taken to court.
