According to this mornings news, Samuel Catt aged 21 has been sent a letter fining him for fly tipping in the Lewes Road area of Brighton. The bags of waste he left outside of his home for collection by CityClean, the Councils waste collection department appear not to have been collected as usual and 3GS who the Council contract to search out flytipping spotted the bags and sent him a fixed penalty notice. Due to the serious nature of fly tipping  the fines levied are a whopping £300 which may of course be a reasonable sum in the context of the cost of recovering items and dealing with them. Unfortunately the fixed penalty notice does not allow for appeals. Presumably it is like a parking fine, in that you can only appeal against the penalty after you have first paid the fine due to the time restrictions on the appeal and the penalty notice. The problem in this case is that £300 is a great deal of money (5 times the sum of a parking fine) and Mr Catt cannot afford to pay it according to the news report. He is therefore forced to go to the Magistrates Court and argue his case which one imagines will be dealt with very quickly. However the cost of the Court case to the City Council will surely be much greater than a fine even if this was upheld by the magistrates and this does appear to be a clear case of mistaken identity as far as the bin bags are concerned. Surely it is time to review the process involved? Perhaps some of our Councillors could step up and respond? On the face of it Mr Catt is owed an apology, not the anxiety of a trip to Court. I have in any case sent a message to 3GS who can be contacted via this form.