A FORMER council employee has alleged that Oldham council wasted a "large amount" of money on electronic tablets to tackle fly-tipping.

According to the ex-employee council officers were issued with electronic devices to speed up day to day service requests and document fly-tipping incidents.

The former member of the Neighbourhood Enforcement Team, who does not wish to be named, told The Oldham Times that a "large amount of money,” which they believed to be in excess of tens of thousands, had been spent on the doomed project.

The former staff member said the system was “very quickly found to be unfit for purpose,” claiming the devices “have never been used” and calling the debacle a “waste” of public funds.

When put to the Oldham council a spokesperson said: ““I can categorially state that (the devices) are actively used within the service.

“The public protection team at the council invested in a number of tablets recently to assist officers in recording inspections and processing the data obtained.

“They were originally allocated to the enforcement team but due to Wifi connectivity issues whilst on site, there were reallocated to other colleagues within the service.”

In an updated statement, the council spokesperson then said the tablets are used by “officers in Public Protection to record inspection findings on site currently focussing on fire risk assessment work and private sector housing audits.

“The project that looked at utilising this technology for Enforcement officers was put on hold due to the changing priorities resulting from the pandemic in 2020.”

The council has yet to confirm how many tablets were purchased and the total cost of the project.

The leader of the Oldham Council, Sean Feilding recently took to Facebook to insist that fly-tippers in the borough were being punished.

Mr Fielding said: “Sometimes people ask me whether we ever fine anybody or take anybody to court when we pick up fly tipping.

“The process of a prosecution takes time so sometimes it takes a while before the tipping you see in Daisy Nook or a back-alley hits somebody other than the Council Taxpayer in the pocket. I can assure you, however, that we absolutely do.”

Last year 28 fixed penalty notices were served by the Enforcement team for litter from vehicles or small items and 166 were issued for littering that involved black bags dumped in alley ways. There were meanwhile 42 prosecutions for non-payment.