AI-enabled CCTV cameras are to be introduced by East Riding of Yorkshire Council to help reduce fly tipping.
The move has been announced following a pilot scheme carried out by the council last month, during which CCTV technology was used to address littering in Willerby.
According to the council, the scheme is designed to ‘deter’ people from ‘committing the environmental crimes’ that are rife in the area, with the local authority receiving roughly 2,500 fly-tipping reports every year.
Three of the camera towers have already been stationed at fly-tipping ‘hotspots’ in the area: Cottingham, Boynton and Rawcliffe, while two more are due to be installed at Hessle and Cottingham.
Fines of up to £1,000 will be issued to those seen abandoning waste on the footage, with the possibility of prosecution and imprisonment in some cases.
Cllr Lyn Healing, the council’s cabinet member for communities and public protection, said: ‘Fly-tipping is a blight and a nuisance, particularly in some rural parts of the East Riding.’
‘These new cameras and their AI technology have been tried and tested by other councils and we want them to replicate the impressive results they’ve already produced elsewhere, here in the East Riding’, she added.
