Yesterday, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs released its latest fly-tipping statistics for England, which provides data on fly-tipping incidents recorded by local authorities in England for April 2024 to March 2025 - covering trends in the number of fly-tipping incidents, with a breakdown by land type, waste type and size. The statement also covers enforcement and prosecution actions undertaken for fly-tipping incidents, but excludes the large-scale incidents dealt with by the Environment Agency and the majority of private-land incidents. It’s quite a read! 

  

Key points include: 

  

* Local authorities dealt with 1.26 million incidents - an increase of 9% from the 1.15 million reported in 2023/24 

  

* At a total of 777,000, some 62% of fly-tips involved household waste - an increase of 13% from 688,000 incidents in 2023/24 

  

* The most common place for fly-tipping was on highways (pavements and roads), which accounted for 37% of incidents. The number of highway incidents was 463,000 - an increase of 9% from 427,000 in 2023/24 

  

* The most common size category was equivalent to a 'small van load' (31% of total incidents), followed by the equivalent of a 'car boot or less' (27%) 

  

* Some 52,000, or around 4% of total incidents, were of 'tipper lorry load' size or larger - an increase of 11% from 47,000 in 2023/24. For these large incidents, the cost of clearance to local authorities was £19.3 million 

  

* Local authorities carried out 572,000 enforcement actions - an increase of 8% from the 530,000 in 2023/24 

  

* The number of fixed penalty notices issued was 69,000 - an increase of 9% from 63,000 in 2023/24. This is the second most common action after investigations and accounted for 12% of all actions 

  

* The total number of court fines decreased by 9% from 1,378 in 2023/24 to 1,250, with the combined value of these fines decreasing by 8% from £730,000 to £673,000. The average fine has increased from £530 in 2023/24 to £539. 

  

This final point, in my view, partly explains why the number of incidents is increasing, rather than decreasing. As I’ve said many times before, if we’re to stop things getting worse, the Government has to make it easier and less expensive for us to properly and efficiently dispose of our genuine waste and hand over our recyclables for processing, while those who still opt to fly-tip must be dealt with far more harshly in a punishment that should involve having their vehicles seized. A picture just popped into my mind’s eye of people clamped in the stocks and angry residents pelting them with the rubbish they’ve been found guilty of dumping. I had a ‘what a good idea’ moment, but then realised I’m not that cruel… 

  

The full report, (which is definitely worth reading) is here.