FIRE chiefs have said Bolton Council’s slim bin policy has increased the amount of fly tipping in the town and will lead to more arson attacks across the borough.

In a performance review report, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority has made the bold assertion that the borough council’s decision to swap all residents’ 240 litre grey waste bins for slimline 140 litre versions has had a ‘negative impact’ on the amount of fly tipping before suggesting that this will lead to more ‘deliberate secondary fires’ over time.

The Quarter Two Performance Review 2016-17, published by the County Fire Officer and Chief Executive states: “The (Bolton) borough has now virtually completed the change over from large wheelie bins to the smaller versions.

“This has already had a negative impact on the amount of fly tipping which will subsequently impact on the volume of deliberate secondary fires over time.”

Additionally, the fire service has released data which shows that in the last eight months of 2016 crews were called to deal with 354 fires involving loose refuse in Bolton compared with 271 incidents in the same period of 2015 — a rise of more than 30 per cent.

Bolton Council began its rollout of slim bins in June of this year and has now swapped the vast majority of all resident’s bins.

Council chiefs are unhappy with the fire authority’s claims and have suggested they are incorrect as they do not collect data on how much fly tipping there is in specific areas.

Cllr Nick Peel, executive cabinet member for the environment said: “I don’t know how they can say that the number has increased — they don’t have the data to back it up and I think the conclusion is false.

“I don’t dispute that there may have been an increase in the number of callouts to loose rubbish fires, but they don’t collect fly tipping data.

“The council has to weigh and measure the amounts that are picked up from fly tipping in the town and those figures show that the amount of refuse picked up from fly tips has decreased.”

He added: “We have invested a lot in our behaviour change teams, so we have more manpower out dealing with fly tipping and challenging people than ever before, as a result the number of fixed penalty notices we have issued has increased on last year.”

“We are not the only borough to adopt the slim bin policy, others have but Bolton is actually being looked at as a model of how to do it — we are extremely satisfied with how the rollout has gone.”

Cllr Peel added that he was ‘disappointed’ with what was said in the report and will look at raising the issue with the fire authority.

Bolton has seen a spate of rubbish fires and refuse bin arson attacks in recent months and Farnworth Fire Station Manager Paul Sumner urged people not to add to the problem by dumping waste.

He said: “Our data shows that while there has been a small rise in the number of wheelie bin fires in Bolton we have generally seen an increase in deliberate fires, including loose refuse, rubbish and wheelie bins.

“We urge people to store their wheelie bins securely, away from property and take any additional waste to your nearest local authority waste refuse site so as to minimise the possibility of fly tipping, as this increases the risk of a deliberate fire being started.

“Despite our partnership work in communities across Greater Manchester deliberate fires do still occur, which impacts on the service we are able to provide, reduces the amount of available resources and puts both the public and firefighters at risk.

“Starting fires deliberately is a criminal offence so we urge anyone with information about any suspicious behaviour to contact the police.”