Labour-run council fines mum £1,000 for 'flytipping' after leaving envelope next to bins

A council fined a nurse £1,000 for "fly-tipping" a cardboard envelope outside her London flat. Loretta Alvarez, 26, who is a mental health nurse, has been threatened by Hounslow council with legal action unless she pays the fine. The single mother claimed the communal bins outside her building in Feltham, west London, were full, so she placed the envelope on top of rubbish which had been piled up beside them.

She said she would "never intentionally" leave rubbish out. She said a council worker may have picked up the envelope, which had her name and address on, assuming the rest of the rubbish piled up beside the bins was hers. The communal bins are shared with about 25 other properties, and the nurse said that it is common for the bins to be full before the weekly collection.

She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): "I pay all my rent, council tax and bills, I can't afford to pay that.

"It's been so stressful, I didn't want this to happen, I wouldn't want it to happen to someone else. I've been trying to juggle this alongside work, being a mum, it's been hard."

Alvarez said: "I don't have that money to give, I can't afford getting into debt to pay it, and I don't want to get a mark on my record. I'm a mental health nurse, I went to university for three years. They're fining me more than someone gets for speeding."

Hounslow council initially gave the deadline of November 5 to make the payment or she could face legal proceedings which could lead to her being criminally charged. It is understood the fine was then put on hold while it was investigated, but it has not been cancelled.

She said she had offered to set up a payment plan, which the council allegedly denied.

She said: "It does feel like they are targeting me. It's Christmas coming up, I don't have £1,000 lying around, not many people do, there are more important things they should be dealing with than an envelope."

Cllr Pritam Grewal, the cabinet member for community safety, said: "We remain committed to taking a zero-tolerance approach to littering and protecting the local environment.

"We are clear that we have done the right thing in dealing with this, and issuing the fine, because littering includes leaving waste anywhere in public apart from in a bin, regardless of whether bins are full.

"While we accept that no one likes receiving a fine, residents expect us to tackle the offence and the offenders. As well as making our streets look neglected, it represents an added cost to council taxpayers, who have to foot the bill for littering and fly-tipping."

Last month, Richmond council was forced to back down from issuing a fixed penalty notice after a woman named Burcu Yesilyur  was confronted by enforcement officers and fined £150 for pouring a small amount of coffee down a drain in west London.