FLY tipping across Chard, Ilminster and Crewkerne is on the decline, bucking the trend of the wider district.

Streetscene manager Chris Cooper, whose team’s responsibility it is to deal with a number of environmental issues in south Somerset, released the figures in a report to South Somerset District Council’s Area West committee last week.

The team cleared 256 flytip incidents across Area West between April, 2014, and January, 2015, which compares to a total of 319 fly tipping incidents in the same period 12 months earlier.

The figures are a trend reversal of the wider district where fly tipping is on the increase.

In his report Mr Cooper said: “The team continues to focus on managing the number of fly tips found in the district; this year has generally seen an increase in numbers compared to the same period last year.

“The tipping appears to be evenly distributed across the district and similar trends are emerging across the whole of the county.

“We’re currently working to uncover the reasons for the increase.

“However, in Area West this trend is reversed. Analysis of the figures shows this is primarily due to a considerable reduction in the number of fly tips reported in Chard.

“I don’t understand why people don’t behave responsibly.

“I can understand an element of commercialism and laziness, but I can’t get my head around why people do it.

“We’re not talking about big commercial tipping.”

Despite the reduction, Chard suffered the highest number of fly tips with 60, while the Streetscene team cleared 41 in Crewkerne and just 13 in Ilminster.

Tatworth and Forton had 16 reported tipping incidents, while Dowlish Wake, Horton, Broadway, Whitelackington, Chilselborough and Over Stratton had none at all.