Forum Brief: Abandoned cars

A report out today from the Institute for European Environmental Policy warns that 250,000 more vehicles will be abandoned on British streets each year because of the government's decision to make the poorest motorists pay for the disposal of their old cars.

Forum Response: Local Government Association

A spokesman for the Local Government Association, told ePolitix.com: "The LGA is very concerned about the consequences of the way the government is choosing to implement this directive, and has long argued that this will lead to a large increase in the number of abandoned vehicles, although it is impossible to predict how many.

"LGA has lobbied for an increase of well over £50 million in government funding for the local authorities, to help them pay for picking up the dumped cars. Around half this amount, unlikely to be enough, has been assumed for this purpose in the allocation of government grant for 2002/2003."

Forum Response: Chartered Institution of Wastes Management

A spokeswoman for the CIWM said: "The End of Life Vehicles Directive (2000/53/EC) is a producer responsibility directive aimed at improving environmental standards in vehicles dismantling and recovery and includes targets to increase the proportion of vehicles that are recycled and recovered in order to reduce the quantity sent to landfill. The directive also includes some materials bans to help reduce the hazardousness of End of Life vehicles.

"The UK was due to implement the End of Life Vehicles Directive in April 2002, and in October 2002 the government received a letter from the EC demanding a reasoned explanation for non-compliance. It is anticipated that the requirements of the Directive will be implemented in the UK by Autumn 2003.

"The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management is deeply concerned at the decision by government in opting for the 'last owner pays' scenario (for returning vehicles that have reached the end of their operational lives to the dismantler) in the interim period, until 1st January 2007, when full producer responsibility takes effect and Car Manufacturers would need to provide for 'free take back' to last owners.

"This decision means that the new environmental standards contained within the ELV Directive (Article 6 and Annex 1) will be imposed onto Vehicle Dismantlers once the Directive has been implemented (Autumn 2003) causing a significant increase in their costs. These costs will be passed onto the last owner of the vehicle and industry sources estimate that they will be in the order of £40 - 100 / vehicle, this is set against current processing costs of £10 -20/vehicle.

"This will clearly provide a major disincentive to the last owner of the vehicle to return the vehicle through this route and it is anticipated that there will be a significant increase in abandonment in response. This situation is set against a trend of rising abandonment of vehicles for a variety of other factors.

"The government undertook a Regulatory Impact Assessment of the ELV Directive which addressed the options available for delivery of the Directive and found that the last owner pays scenario overall presented the lowest costs and would impinge least on the competitiveness of the automobile industry.

"The CIWM has serious concerns that the last owner pays approach is poor practice in environmental terms and is likely to have a detrimental impact on all the stakeholders involved in the management of abandoned vehicles including: Local Authorities; the Police; the Fire Service; Dismantlers; and the DVLA. It will also impact on the public in terms of detriment of amenity and as a potential health and safety risk."

Forum Response: Liverpool City Council

Cllr Flo Lucas, Liverpool Executive Member for the Environment and Community Safety told ePolitix.com: "Abandoned cars are a menace. They blight neighbourhoods and encourage anti-social behaviuor, and here in Liverpool we're not willing to put up with this. We intend to remove all abandoned cars from our streets within 48-hours thanks to a special hotline we'll be setting up.

"Our call centre operators will beableto check on the status of cars which appear abandoned, see whether they have registered owners and are taxed and so on, and if they don't check out we'll send out a team to pick them up.

"If they're not claimed we'll crush them. But before we do that we're going to become what we believe is the first local authority in the country to de-pollute them under the new EU regulations. We'll make sure that all our cars which go to the crusher do so in an environentally friendly manner. We want to make a real stand on this."