Fly-tipping statistics for England, 2022 to 2023
Updated 13 March 2024
Applies to England
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fly-tipping-in-england/local-authority-fly-tipping-enforcement-league-tables-for-england-202122
This statistical notice was updated on 13th March 2024. This notice incorporates revisions to 8 local authorities’ data. The data revisions affect the number of fixed penalty notices reported, the number of paid fixed penalty notices, the number of prosecutions, prosecution outcomes, the number of enforcement actions, the national totals for these and the local authority enforcement league tables. All other sections of the notice and datasets are not affected.
For more detail, please see the revisions section.
This statistical notice provides statistics on fly-tipping incidents recorded by Local Authorities in England, for April 2022 to March 2023. It covers trends in the number of fly-tipping incidents, with a breakdown by land type, waste type and size. It also covers enforcement and prosecution actions undertaken for fly-tipping incidents. It excludes the large-scale incidents dealt with by the Environment Agency and the majority of private-land incidents.
1. Key points
- For the 2022/23 year, local authorities in England dealt with 1.08 million fly-tipping incidents, a decrease of 1% from the 1.09 million reported in 2021/22.
- In 2022/23, 60% of fly-tips involved household waste. Total incidents involving household waste were 653,000 in 2022/23, a decrease of 3% from 671,000 incidents in 2021/22.
- The most common place for fly-tipping to occur was on highways (pavements and roads), which accounted for two fifths (40%) of total incidents in 2022/23. In 2022/23, the number of highway incidents was 433,000, which was a decrease of 7% from 464,000 in 2021/22.
- The most common size category for fly-tipping incidents in 2022/23 was equivalent to a ‘small van load’ (31% of total incidents), followed by the equivalent of a ‘car boot or less’ (27%).
- In 2022/23, 42,000 or around 4% of total incidents were of ‘tipper lorry load’ size or larger, which is an increase of 13% from 37,000 in 2021/22. For these large fly-tipping incidents, the cost of clearance to local authorities in England in 2022/23 was £13.2 million, compared with £10.7 million in 2021/22.
- Local authorities carried out 532,000 enforcement actions in 2022/23, an increase of 24,000 actions (5%) from 507,000 in 2021/22.
- The number of fixed penalty notices issued was 69,000 in 2022/23, a decrease of 25% from 91,000 in 2021/22. This is the second most common action after investigations and accounted for 13% of all actions in 2022/23.
- The average court fine has increased from £466 in 2021/22 to £526 in 2022/23. The total number of court fines decreased by 17% from 1,798 in 2021/22 to 1,491 in 2022/23, with the combined value of these fines decreasing by 6% from £837,000 to £785,000.
2. Background on data reporting and data caveats
These data are based on incidents and actions reported by local authorities through WasteDataFlow. The intention is to capture all fly tipping incidents, whether reported by staff or customers, and all enforcement actions taken by local authorities in response to fly tipping incidents.
Local authorities gather their data from a number of different sources, and data can often be collected and reported by separate teams. There is a level of discretion in applying the reporting guidance. This can lead to some differences in how local authorities record incidents and enforcement actions. The nature of fly-tipping means that there can be relatively high variation between years and between local authorities. Changes in data collection and reporting over time mean that trends should be interpreted with caution.
Following publication of the first fly-tipping enforcement league tables in August 2023, we became aware of inconsistencies in the way authorities report certain enforcement data. As part of our annual quality assurance, we reminded local authorities this year that FPNs issued solely for littering should not be reported through WasteDataFlow. In addition, all reporting authorities were contacted via the WasteDataFlow newsletter (in November 2023) to remind them of the guidance around certain enforcement actions. This may have contributed to the reduction in total number of FPNs issued for fly-tipping for 2022/23, reported in WasteDataFlow.
We were aware that a small number of local authorities provided incident data based on either customer reported fly-tips only, or just those incidents reported by staff, rather than the combined total or ‘all incidents’. Incident data from 2018/19 and earlier included estimates for ‘all incidents’ for these local authorities. However, to improve transparency in the reported data, we undertook an exercise with all local authorities for the 2019/20 data, and discovered 90% of local authorities were reporting ‘all incidents’. From 2019/20, for those local authorities that are not reporting ‘all incidents’, no estimates have been made for ‘all incidents’. The figures presented in this statistical notice are all based on the new, unadjusted methodology. The reporting basis for each local authority is available in the published dataset. For more detail, see the Reporting basis section.
2.1 Revisions
In this March update, revisions have been made to the 2022/23 data for the following local authorities:
- Ealing - the number of littering fixed penalty notices issued in conjunction with fly-tipping have been updated.
- Merton - the number of fixed penalty notices issued for fly-tipping have been updated.
- Newcastle-upon-Tyne - the number of prosecutions and the prosecution outcomes have been updated.
- Nuneaton and Bedworth - the number of littering fixed penalty notices issued in conjunction with fly-tipping have been updated.
- South Holland – the number of littering fixed penalty notices issued in conjunction with fly-tipping and the number of paid fixed penalty notices have been updated.
- Stockport - the number of fixed penalty notices issued for fly-tipping, the number of fixed penalty notices for household duty of care, the number of other fixed penalty notices and the number of paid fixed penalty notices have been updated.
- Sutton - the number of littering fixed penalty notices issued in conjunction with fly-tipping have been updated.
- Wandsworth - the number of littering fixed penalty notices issued in conjunction with fly-tipping have been updated.
These revisions have been made due to new or revised data being received from the local authorities after publication in January.
These data revisions affect the number of fixed penalty notices reported, the number of paid fixed penalty notices, the number of prosecutions, prosecution outcomes, the number of enforcement actions, the national totals for these and the local authority enforcement league tables. All other sections of the notice and datasets are not affected.
For more detail, please see the revisions section.
2.2 Impact of coronavirus (COVID-19)on fly-tipping
The 2020/21 reporting period covered the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this may have had an impact on incidents and actions for that year. This may affect comparability with figures from other years, especially as the effect on subsequent years is unknown.
2.3 Assessing the figures
Comparisons between local authorities should be made with care. In assessing the figures, local authorities should not be classified as ‘good’ or ‘poor’ performers based purely on numbers of fly-tips. The situation is complex and can be influenced by population density, housing stock, demographics and commuter routes. Those reporting higher incident numbers are often those being more pro-active and rigorous in identifying incidents by encouraging the public to report incidents, training of street crews, and increased use of more sophisticated methods for capturing and reporting incidents.
Local authorities take a variety of approaches to tackling fly-tipping based on their local priorities, and so enforcement data should also not be used in isolation as a measurement of performance. Defra is aware that the definitions used to describe fly-tips and enforcement actions in the guidance are interpreted broadly by local authorities, and that changes in staffing, data collection methods, and cyber-crime have led to reporting errors in the past.
Trends over time for a particular local authority may be a fairer comparison but many local authorities have changed the way they capture and report fly-tips over the past few years, so the changes over time should still be interpreted with some care. A time series of total incidents for each local authority is available for download. The detailed dataset makes clear the reporting basis for each local authority.
Cost data is only published for clearance costs for ‘tipper lorry load’ and ‘significant/multi load’ incident categories and enforcement costs for ‘prosecutions’ and ‘injunctions’ action categories, which are reported directly by local authorities.
Please note that due to high numbers of incidents being reported as ‘other unidentified’ for land type and waste type in 2022/23, some caution is needed in the interpretation of year-on-year changes.
Percentage changes presented in this statistical notice are based on unrounded figures.
Further information about the data is available at the end of this release.
3. Total number of fly-tipping incidents in England
Figure 1: Total number of fly-tipping incidents in England, 2018/19 to 2022/23
Source: WasteDataFlow, Defra
Notes - Figure 1
Equivalent figures for 2007/08 to 2017/18 can be seen in the accompanying dataset.
a. Due to methodological changes, data for 2019/20 onwards is not comparable to earlier years. These methodological changes have been applied to 2018/19. For detailed information on these changes please see the reporting basis section.
Download the data for this chart
In 2022/23 there were 1.08 million fly-tipping incidents reported, a decrease of 1% from 1.09 million in 2021/22 (Figure 1). This is the second year in a row that a decrease has been seen.
Incidents involving the Environment Agency or cleared by private landowners are not included in this notice. In 2022/23 the Environment agency dealt with 57 incidents of large-scale, illegal dumping.
Figure 2: Fly-tipping incidents per 1,000 people in England by region, 2022/23, compared to 2021/22
Source: WasteDataFlow, Defra
Download the data for this chart
Figure 2 shows that in 2022/23 there were on average 19 fly-tipping incidents per 1,000 people in England. London had the highest average number of incidents per 1,000 people at 48, while the South West had the lowest at 9 incidents per 1,000 people.
4. Fly-tipping incidents in England by land type
Figure 3: Fly-tipping incidents by land type in England, 2022/23, compared to 2021/22
Source: WasteDataFlow, Defra
Notes - Figure 3
* Other includes agricultural, watercourse and railway.
Download the data for this chart
Figure 3 shows the number of fly-tipping incidents by land type for 2021/22 and 2022/23. Highways (pavements and roads) have consistently been the most common land type for fly-tipping incidents over time, accounting for two fifths (40%) of all incidents in 2022/23. In 2022/23 there were 433,000 incidents, a decrease of 7% from 2021/22 (464,000 incidents).
Fly-tipping on council land was the next most common land type for fly-tipping incidents, accounting for 18% of all incidents, with ‘footpaths and bridleways’ next (17%). Incidents on council land such as housing estates, car parks, parks and offices increased by 3% to 191,000 incidents from 185,000. Footpath and bridleway incidents increased by 7% to 181,000 from 168,000 incidents.
Fly-tipping incidents in back alleyways amounted to a further 9% of all incidents (103,000 incidents) in 2022/23, a decrease of 3% from 106,000 in the previous year.
5. Fly-tipping incidents in England by waste type
The majority of fly-tipping incidents are household waste (the sum of ‘black bags’ and ‘other’), which in 2022/23 accounted for 60% of all incidents (Figure 4). The majority of this was ‘household waste (other)’.
Figure 4: Household and commercial waste in England, 2021/22 and 2022/23 (% of total incidents)
Source: WasteDataFlow, Defra
Notes - Figure 4
Household waste (other) could include material from house or shed clearances, old furniture, carpets and the waste from small scale DIY works.
Commercial waste (other) could include pallets, cardboard boxes, plastics, foam and any other waste not contained in bags or containers and not due to be collected.
Download the data for this chart
Total household waste decreased by 3% from 671,000 incidents in 2021/22 to 653,000 incidents in 2022/23. The household waste sub-categories, ‘black bags’ and ‘other’ decreased by 10,000 incidents (5%) and 9,000 incidents (2%), respectively.
There were 78,000 incidents involving commercial waste in 2022/23, accounting for 7% of total incidents (Figure 4). This was an increase of 15% from the 67,000 incidents reported in 2021/22. There were 44,000 incidents of commercial waste in black bags and 34,000 incidents of other commercial waste in 2022/23.
Types of fly-tipping, other than household and commercial waste amount to 33% of all fly-tipping incidents. Within this, vehicle parts, animal carcasses, clinical waste, asbestos, and ‘chemical drums, oil and fuel’ incidents each account for less than 1% of total incidents.
Figure 5: Types of other fly-tipping in England, 2022/23, compared to 2021/22
Source: WasteDataFlow, Defra
Notes - Figure 5
* Other Identified includes vehicle parts, animal carcasses, clinical waste, asbestos, and ‘chemical drums, oil and fuel’.
Download the data for this chart
Figure 5 shows the number of fly-tipping incidents by type, other than household and commercial waste, for 2021/22 and 2022/23. Please note that due to high numbers of incidents being reported as ‘other unidentified’ for waste type in 2022/23, some caution is needed in the interpretation of year-on-year changes. In 2022/23, 154,000 incidents were reported as ‘other unidentified’; this type of waste accounted for 14% of total incidents.
For some waste types, such as green waste (which includes vegetation/pruning, clean soil, tree trunks and branches) or electrical goods, it is not always possible to tell whether they originated from households or businesses.
The number of white goods incidents in 2022/23 was 50,000, similar to 2021/22. White good incidents accounted for 5% of total incidents in 2022/23. Green waste accounted for 3% of total incidents in 2022/23. Tyre incidents accounted for around 1% of total incidents in 2022/23.
Incidents with construction/demolition/excavation material decreased by 2%.
6. Fly-tipping incidents in England by size
Incidents recorded by size category relate to those investigated and cleared by the local authority. For a number of reasons, but primarily due to incidents on private land, which an authority may not clear, total incidents by size category may not match total incidents recorded by land type or waste type.
Figure 6: Fly-tipping incidents by size in England 2022/23, compared to 2021/22
Source: WasteDataFlow, Defra
Download the data for this chart
Figure 6 shows the number of fly-tipping incidents by size for 2021/22 and 2022/23. As in 2021/22, ‘small van load’ was the largest size category in 2022/23, with 31% of incidents (322,000 incidents) reported being this size, this is a 6% decrease on 341,000 incidents in 2021/22.
The second-largest size category is equivalent to a ‘car boot or less’. Fly-tipping incidents of this size increased by 4% from 271,000 incidents in 2021/22 to 282,000 incidents in 2022/23 and made up 27% of all incidents.
‘Single items’, such as furniture, mattresses etc. accounted for 15% of total incidents and have decreased by 8% from 176,000 incidents in 2021/22 to 162,000 in 2022/23.
In 2022/23 ‘Single black bag’ size incidents accounted for 7% of total incidents and have increased by 11%, from 65,000 incidents in 2021/22 to 72,000 incidents in 2022/23.
In 2022/23 ‘Transit van Load’ incidents accounted for 16% of total incidents and have increased by 1%, from 162,000 incidents in 2021/22 to 169,000 incidents in 2022/23.
In 2022/23, 42,000 or 4% of total incidents were of ‘tipper lorry load’ size or larger, which is an increase of 13% from 37,000 in 2021/22. For these large fly-tipping incidents, the cost of clearance to local authorities in England in 2022/23 was £13.2 million, compared with £10.7 million in 2021/22.
As noted above, we no longer produce estimates of clearance costs for other size categories. Please see the methodology section for further details.
7. Fly-tipping enforcement and prosecution - Updated 13th March 2024
Figure 7: Fly-tipping enforcement actions in England, 2018/19 to 2022/23
Source: WasteDataFlow, Defra
Notes - Figure 7
‘Others’ is the sum of stop and search, vehicles seized, formal caution, prosecution and injunction.
Equivalent figures for 2007/08 to 2017/18 can be seen in the accompanying dataset.
Download the data for this chart
Figure 7 shows the number of fly-tipping enforcement actions broken down by type. There were 532,000 enforcement actions carried out in England in 2022/23, a 5% increase (of 24,000 actions) from 507,000 in 2021/22. It should be noted that multiple actions can sometimes be carried out on one particular incident.
Total enforcement costs have not been estimated for 2022/23 as accurate costs are not available for the majority of enforcement categories.
Investigations have consistently been the most common action taken against fly-tipping incidents over time, accounting for 65% of all actions in 2022/23, with 348,000 investigations in total. This is an increase of 12% from 2021/22, where 311,000 investigations were carried out.
There were 59,000 warning letters issued in 2022/23, an increase of 4,000 (8%) from 2021/22. Warning letters accounted for 11% of total enforcement actions in 2022/23.
The number of duty of care inspections rose by 18% in 2022/23, from 26,000 inspections to 30,000 inspections. This accounted for 6% of total enforcement actions in 2022/23.
A total of 23,000 statutory notices were issued in 2022/23, accounting for 4% of total enforcement actions. This was an increase of 6% from the 21,000 statutory notices issued in 2021/22.
Local authorities issued 69,000 fixed penalty notices (FPN) in total during 2022/23 and these were the second most common enforcement action, accounting for 13% of total actions. The total number of FPNs has decreased by 25% from 91,000 in 2021/22.
In May 2016 local authorities in England were given the power to issue FPNs for fly-tipping. Prior to this date, local authorities issued fly-tippers with a range of FPNs, including in relation to littering or anti-social behaviour. Further enforcement powers were given to local authorities and the Environment Agency in January 2019, who can now issue FPNs for breaches of the household waste duty of care, where householders pass their waste to an unlicensed waste carrier. Local authorities are therefore asked to report against a variety of FPNs in connection with fly-tipping
Figure 8: Number of Fixed Penalty Notices issued for fly-tipping, by type, in England, 2021/22 and 2022/23
Source:WasteDataFlow, Defra
Notes - Figure 8
* These are FPNs which have been served in relation to fly tipping and other waste offences that are not captured by the other three categories.
Download the data for this chart
Figure 8 shows the number of FPNs issued for fly-tipping, by type. For 2022/23, 20,700 (30%) of FPNs were issued specifically for fly-tipping, 27,200 (40%) for fly-tipping in relation to littering, 4,700 (6%) for fly-tipping in relation to household duty of care and 16,000 (23%) for fly-tipping in relation to other waste offences.
As part of our annual quality assurance, we reminded local authorities this year that FPNs issued solely for littering should not be reported through WasteDataFlow. This may have contributed to the decrease in the number of FPNs reported by some local authorities. However, reductions have been seen in all FPN categories.
Table 1: Fly-tipping prosecution outcomes in England, 2018/19 to 2022/23
| Year | Fines Issued | Absolute or Conditional Discharge | Other (successful outcomes) | Community Service | Custodial Sentence | Cases Lost | Total Prosecutions | Successful Prosecutions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018/19 | 1,659 | 80 | 109 | 40 | 26 | 101 | 2,005 | 95.0% |
| 2019/20 | 1,657 | 58 | 95 | 44 | 41 | 50 | 1,930 | 97.4% |
| 2020/21 | 621 | 33 | 36 | 15 | 5 | 25 | 721 | 96.5% |
| 2021/22 | 1,798 | 56 | 63 | 30 | 20 | 37 | 1,960 | 98.1% |
| 2022/23 | 1,491 | 55 | 58 | 34 | 21 | 46 | 1,681 | 97.3% |
Notes - Table 1
Other successful: Any other positive results awarded by the court this period.
Successful prosecutions: This is calculated as (Total prosecutions - cases lost)/Total prosecutions.
It should be noted that multiple outcomes can sometimes be awarded to a particular prosecution.
Equivalent figures for 2007/08 to 2017/18 can be seen in the accompanying dataset.
Download the data for this table
The number of prosecution actions has decreased by 14% from 1,960 in 2021/22 to 1,681 in 2022/23 (Table 1). Costs of prosecution actions decreased by 1% from £850,900 in 2021/22 to £846,500 in 2022/23.
Table 1 shows that the success rates for prosecution actions against fly-tipping are consistently very high over time. In 2022/23, 97.3% of prosecutions resulted in a conviction.
The majority of prosecution outcomes are fines, which were issued for 89% of the prosecutions taken against fly-tipping incidents in 2022/23. The number of court fines decreased by 17% from 1,798 in 2021/22 to 1,491 in 2022/23, with the value of total fines decreasing by 6% from £837,000 in 2021/22 to £785,000 in 2022/23. The average court fine has increased by 13%, from £466 to £526,in 2022/23.
The number of community service outcomes increased by 13% from 30 in 2021/22 to 34 in 2022/23.
8. Local authority fly-tipping enforcement league tables - Updated 13th March 2024
In the Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan, government committed to “increase transparency of the data on the use of on-the-spot fines, including publishing league tables on fly-tipping”. We are publishing the following set of tables to meet this commitment.
Local authorities take a variety of approaches to tackling fly-tipping based on their local priorities and we are aware that several local authorities follow an enforcement approach which focuses on prosecutions or other enforcement activity rather than fixed penalty notices. Enforcement data should not be used in isolation as a measurement of performance.
A breakdown of data for each local authority, including prosecution data, is available in the published dataset
8.1 Total Enforcement Actions
Thirteen local authorities did not report any enforcement actions through WasteDataFlow in 2022/23 - Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Colchester, East Devon, Exeter, Fylde, Isles of Scilly, Lewes, Sedgemoor, Somerset West and Taunton, South Hams, South Somerset, Uttlesford, and West Devon.
8.2 Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs)
Total FPNs include FPNs issued specifically for fly-tipping, FPNs issued for breaching the household waste duty of care, FPNs for littering issued in conjunction with fly-tipping, and other FPNs issued in relation to fly-tipping.
Although data on FPNs paid is collected through WasteDataFlow, and is available in the published dataset, we are aware that this may be inconsistently reported by local authorities and as such this has not been included in these league tables. We are working with local authorities to improve the quality of this reporting.
The total number of FPNs issued was 69,000 in 2022/23. There were 42 local authorities in 2022/23 which did not report issuing any FPNs, 17 local authorities issued 1 and 7 local authorities issued 2. Details of all local authorities can be found in the published dataset. A further 44 issued 3 to 10 FPNs. There were 21 local authorities who reported issuing more than 1,000 FPNs in 2022/23.
We would expect that local authorities with fewer fly-tipping incidents would have less cause to issue FPNs in relation to fly-tipping. Tables 2 and 3 present the number of FPNs standardised against the number of incidents.
Table 2: Of those that issued FPNs, these are the 20 local authorities with the highest FPN to incident ratios in 2022/23
| Rank of FPNs per incident (1) | Local Authority | Region | FPNs per incident (2)(3) | Total FPNs | Total Enforcement Actions | Total Incidents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brentwood | East | 2.1400 | 1,498 | 2,663 | 700 |
| 2 | Islington | London | 1.3785 | 1,781 | 3,644 | 1,292 |
| 3 | Brighton and Hove | South East | 1.0999 | 2,235 | 2,785 | 2,032 |
| 4 | Enfield | London | 0.9257 | 5,096 | 11,580 | 5,505 |
| 5 | Wandsworth | London | 0.7059 | 4,302 | 17,737 | 6,094 |
| 6 | Thurrock | East | 0.4716 | 1,162 | 2,176 | 2,464 |
| 7 | New Forest | South East | 0.4097 | 390 | 1,598 | 952 |
| 8 | East Lindsey | East Midlands | 0.3768 | 546 | 750 | 1,449 |
| 9 | Waltham Forest | London | 0.3415 | 3,128 | 5,285 | 9,160 |
| 10 | Torbay | South West | 0.2942 | 248 | 248 | 843 |
| 11 | Ealing | London | 0.2929 | 3,785 | 8,739 | 12,922 |
| 12 | City of London | London | 0.2865 | 859 | 3,212 | 2,998 |
| 13 | Stoke-on-Trent | West Midlands | 0.2680 | 875 | 1,701 | 3,265 |
| 14 | Reading | South East | 0.2667 | 363 | 1,055 | 1,361 |
| 15 | Lambeth | London | 0.2642 | 1,572 | 4,454 | 5,951 |
| 16 | Gloucester | South West | 0.2596 | 353 | 1,203 | 1,360 |
| 17 | Blackburn with Darwen | North West | 0.2453 | 1,022 | 6,836 | 4,167 |
| 18 | County Durham | North East | 0.2403 | 1,301 | 6,949 | 5,415 |
| 19 | Sutton | London | 0.2359 | 1,167 | 1,952 | 4,946 |
| 20 | Pendle | North West | 0.2258 | 877 | 4,792 | 3,884 |
Source: WasteDataFlow, Defra
Notes - Table 2
- A rank of 1 is given to the local authority/authorities with the highest FPN to incident ratio.
- This is calculated, for each local authority, as the total number of FPNs issued divided by the total number of fly-tipping incidents.
- Standardising the data highlights that some local authorities are reporting more FPNs than incidents. This could be due to several factors, such as delays between an incident being reported and the resultant FPN issued, FPNs issued to multiple offenders involved in a single fly-tipping incident, several small fly-tipping incidents being recorded as one larger fly-tip or potential reporting errors.
Download the data for this table
Table 3: Of those that issued FPNs, these are the 20 local authorities with the lowest FPN to incident ratios in 2022/23
| Rank of FPNs per incident (1) | Local Authority | Region | FPNs per incident (2) | Total FPNs (3) | Total Enforcement Actions | Total Incidents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 267 | Norwich | East | 0.0002 | 1 | 286 | 5,297 |
| 266 | Croydon | London | 0.0004 | 10 | 986 | 22,852 |
| 265 | Hounslow | London | 0.0005 | 13 | 1,290 | 26,135 |
| 264 | South Gloucestershire | South West | 0.0006 | 1 | 669 | 1,790 |
| 263 | Solihull | West Midlands | 0.0006 | 2 | 34 | 3,556 |
| 262 | Gateshead | North East | 0.0006 | 3 | 73 | 4,925 |
| 261 | Redditch | West Midlands | 0.0006 | 1 | 46 | 1,555 |
| 260 | Test Valley | South East | 0.0007 | 1 | 313 | 1,457 |
| 259 | Bromsgrove | West Midlands | 0.0008 | 1 | 49 | 1,249 |
| 258 | Hart | South East | 0.0008 | 1 | 448 | 1,248 |
| 257 | Barnet | London | 0.0010 | 10 | 10 | 9,763 |
| 256 | Liverpool | North West | 0.0010 | 24 | 24 | 23,404 |
| 255 | East Staffordshire | West Midlands | 0.0011 | 1 | 119 | 941 |
| 254 | North Warwickshire | West Midlands | 0.0011 | 1 | 174 | 912 |
| 253 | South Cambridgeshire | East | 0.0011 | 1 | 892 | 890 |
| 252 | Broadland | East | 0.0011 | 1 | 43 | 887 |
| 251 | Chichester | South East | 0.0012 | 1 | 109 | 844 |
| 250 | Runnymede | South East | 0.0013 | 1 | 80 | 780 |
| 249 | Hastings | South East | 0.0013 | 2 | 52 | 1,555 |
| 248 | Lincoln | East Midlands | 0.0013 | 3 | 225 | 2,289 |
Source: WasteDataFlow, Defra
Notes - Table 3
- A rank of 1 is given to the local authority/authorities with the highest FPN to incident ratio.
- This is calculated, for each local authority, as the total number of FPNs issued divided by the total number of fly-tipping incidents. These figures are rounded to 4 decimal places.
- This excludes those 42 local authorities who have reported issuing no FPNs in 2022/23. 42 of these local authorities would have a rank of 268, it is not possible to calculate an FPN per incident ratio for the Isles of Scilly.
Download the data for this table
9. What you need to know about this release
9.1 Contact details
Responsible statisticians: Katherine Merrett and Adele Storr
Email: [email protected]
Media enquiries: 0330 041 6560 (Defra Press Office)
9.2 Official Statistics
This is an Official Statistics publication. Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You can read about how Official Statistics in Defra comply with these standards on the Defra Statistics website.
You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards using the contact details above. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing [email protected] or via the OSR website.
10. About these statistics
Fly-tipping is the illegal deposit of waste on land, contrary to Section 33(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Local authorities and the Environment Agency both have a responsibility in respect of illegally deposited waste. This includes local authorities and the Environment Agency collecting and reporting data on fly-tipping. This statistical notice covers data reported by local authorities in England.
10.1 User Statement
Data on fly-tipping is collected to inform policy making and to help local authorities understand what is happening in their area. It records the number of fly-tipping incidents, the type of material tipped, location and size, together with enforcement action taken. The data are used by local and central government, researchers and the public.
10.2 Context
Fly-tipping is a crime, a significant blight on local communities and a source of environmental harm. It also undermines legitimate waste businesses where unscrupulous operators undercut those operating within the law.
Local authorities and the Environment Agency both have a responsibility in respect of illegally deposited waste with certain obligations set out in the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Local authorities have a duty to clear fly-tipped material from relevant land in their areas and consequently they deal with the vast majority of fly-tipping on public land. They can investigating these, and other incidents such as those on private land, and carrying out a range of enforcement actions. The Environment Agency is responsible for dealing with large-scale, serious and organised illegal dumping incidents or those which pose an immediate threat to human health or the environment. Responsibility for dealing with fly-tipping on private land rests with private landowners and is not subject to mandatory data reporting.
Incidents involving the Environment Agency or cleared by private landowners are not included in this notice. In 2022/23 the Environment agency dealt with 57 incidents of large-scale, illegal dumping.
10.3 Impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) on fly-tipping
The 2020/21 reporting period covered the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first national lockdown introduced in March 2020 led to some local authorities being unable to maintain collections of dry recyclates, with some suspending garden and bulky waste collections. There was also a widespread closure of household waste recycling centres (HWRCs). HWRCs were later re-opened following Government guidance on managing HWRCs in England during the COVID-19 pandemic but with some restrictions in place (e.g. booking system). These factors and other factors such as changes in household consumption, travel and leisure patterns may have contributed to the increases seen in the number of fly-tipping incidents reported for 2020/21.
Staff shortages, staff being furloughed, and staff being redeployed may also have impacted on the number of enforcement actions which were carried out during 2020/21. Courts were also closed at certain points of the reporting period which several local authorities reported impacted on the number of prosecution actions undertaken.
This may affect comparability with figures from other years, especially as the effect on subsequent years is unknown.
10.4 Methodology
These statistics are based on the returns made to the Fly-tipping Module in the WasteDataFlow database by local authorities in England from April 2022 to March 2023. The Fly-tipping Module is the national system used since 2015 to record the incidents and cost of clearing and enforcing against illegally deposited waste by local authorities and the Environment Agency. Detailed guidance is available on the use of WasteDataFlow. Private landowners are not required to report fly-tips on their land, although some choose to do so voluntarily.
It should be noted that the private land data included in this notice do not reflect the full scale of fly-tipping on private land, as most cases go unreported.
The reporting system has been modified to allow more detailed information capture on the individual types of fixed penalty notices issued by local authorities. This has included fixed penalty notices specifically for fly-tipping which were introduced in May 2016 and more recently fixed penalty notices for breaches of householder duty of care which came into force in January 2019.
Local authorities gather their data from a number of sources and departments. Incidents are reported by the public through call centres or online, operatives on the ground collecting and recording, Enforcement Officers, contractors and management companies. Many authorities await verification from investigations before recording public reports as fly-tips.
Data are requested in respect of incidents cleared or investigated by local authorities and, separately, the enforcement actions taken against fly-tippers. These can often be collected and reported by separate teams. Therefore, data can be entered onto the system by one or more persons within an authority. This may lead to some discrepancies and a level of uncertainty. Data verification and quality assurance is carried out by WasteDataFlow personnel and Defra. This is done by a quarterly check of specific aspects of the data to identify significant anomalies which would be queried with authorities.
Until 2017/18, estimate costs for the majority of clearance and enforcement categories were calculated based on typical unit costs for dealing with the different types of incidents/actions. Costs were provided by a small selection of local authorities between 2003 and 2006 when the Flycapture database was being set up. These were used to generate standard unit costs for the clearance and enforcement categories, which were then multiplied up by the numbers of incidents and enforcement actions respectively, in order to generate total cost estimates. The standard unit costs used are detailed in the accompanying notes to the published datasets.
In August 2015 Defra undertook an exercise to update the cost basis by surveying 100 local authorities that had previously indicated a willingness to participate. Unfortunately, both the quantity and quality of response data was insufficient to provide robust factors as replacements. During 2017, Defra carried out some preliminary investigations to source updated costs, but concluded that more targeted and detailed work is required to properly understand the complexities surrounding costs to local authorities. As the standard unit costs are now more than 10 years out of date, the decision has been taken to cease using these from the 2017/18 publication onwards. For the time being only costs for clearance categories ‘tipper lorry load’ and ‘significant/multi loads’, and enforcement categories ‘prosecutions’ and ‘injunctions’ (which are reported directly by local authorities) will continue to be published.
10.5 Detailed breakdowns
A breakdown of data for each local authority is available on the Defra website. In assessing the figures local authorities should not be classified as ‘good’ or ‘poor’ performers based purely on numbers of fly-tips. Comparisons between local authorities should be made with care. The situation is complex and can be influenced by population density, housing stock, demographics and commuter routes. Those reporting higher incident numbers are often those being more pro-active and rigorous in identifying incidents by encouraging the public to report incidents, training of street crews, and increased use of more sophisticated methods for capturing and reporting incidents. Local authorities take a variety of approaches to tackling fly-tipping based on their local priorities, and so enforcement data should not be used in isolation as a measurement of performance. Defra is also aware that the definitions used to describe fly-tips and enforcement actions in the guidance are interpreted broadly by local authorities, and that changes in staffing, data collection methods, and cyber-crime have led to reporting errors in the past.
Trends over time for a particular local authority may be a fairer comparison but many local authorities have changed the way they capture and report fly-tips over the past few years, so the changes over time should still be interpreted with some care. A time series of total incidents for each local authority is available for download. There can be relatively high variation between years and between local authorities.
From 2019/20, incidents per 1,000 people for each local authority have been included in the published dataset.
10.6 Reporting basis
Under Section 71(4) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 local authorities are required to report information on fly-tipping incidents and actions taken through WasteDataFlow. Details of all fly-tipping incidents, reports, and actions should be reported via WasteDataFlow, including customer reported and those reported by, and pro-actively cleared by staff and contractors.
We had been aware of a few local authorities who were not reporting all incidents or who had changed their basis of reporting.
For the 2019/20 reporting year, Defra undertook a check with all local authorities around the basis of reporting in order to improve transparency in the reported data. An additional question was added to WasteDataFlow to capture the reporting basis for each local authority. The question included was as follows:
The data entries in the Fly-tipping module is a record of fly-tipping offences under s33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. We want you to record information for all relevant incidents and actions covering both public reported and those pro-actively cleared by your own and contractors crews. Please select the description that best describes the coverage of your reporting of Fly-tipping incidents and actions:
- All incidents i.e. customer/public reported and those reported by, and pro-actively cleared by, your own and contractor crews.
- Customer/public reported only.
- Staff/contractor and pro-actively cleared only.
This confirmed that the majority (286; 90%) of all local authorities, in 2019/20, were reporting all incidents; 29 (9%) were providing figures based on customer reported fly-tips only, 1 was providing figures based just on those incidents reported by staff and 1 local authority had changed their basis of reporting during 2019/20.
In previous years, estimates were made for ‘all incidents’ for a small number of local authorities where it was known that the local authorities reported figures were not based on ‘all incidents’. These estimated figures were included in the national incident totals but not in the local authority level dataset.
For 2019/20 onwards, for those local authorities that are not reporting ‘all incidents’, no estimates have been made for ‘all incidents’. This was due to the number of local authorities concerned and lack of data to make reliable estimates for ‘all incidents’. This means that the national totals for 2019/20 onwards are not comparable to national totals from earlier years. In order to have comparable data for 2019/20 and 2018/19 we have removed the previous adjustments made to the 2018/19 national figures. These adjustments were made to those few local authorities that were known not to be reporting all incidents, but where the data was available to make the adjustments.
For the revised 2018/19 and the 2019/20 national totals onwards, these only include estimates for non-response and missing data.
The questions on reporting basis have been retained in WasteDataFlow to enable Defra to continue to monitor the basis of reporting. In 2022/23, 278 (90%) of local authorities were reporting all incidents; 26 (8%) were providing figures based on customer reported fly-tips only, 1 was providing figures based just on those incidents reported by staff, 4 local authorities had changed their basis of reporting during 2022/23 and one local authority had data that was estimated.
We will continue to encourage local authorities to make all reasonable efforts to report all incidents in future years.
Data on enforcement and prosecution actions is not affected by the methodological change and the time series presented in this notice.
10.7 Non-response and estimation
In 2022/23, 309 local authorities provided data on fly-tipping incidents and actions.
For 2022/23, three local authorities did not submit data on clearance costs for ‘tipper lorry load’ and/or ‘significant/multi load’ incidents for some or all quarters. These were estimated by Defra based on previous quarters’ data where the figures were consistent or using average 2022/23 unit costs from the known returns or otherwise using an average of previous years’ data for these local authorities. These three local authorities were Bristol, Lewes and North Somerset.
Four local authorities did not submit data on enforcement cost for ‘prosecutions’ and/or ‘injunctions’ for some or all quarters. These were estimated based on using average 2022/23 unit costs from the known returns or otherwise looking at average costs for the local authority from previous years. These four local authorities were Sutton, Thurrock, Tunbridge Wells and Waltham Forest.
Estimates for clearance, enforcement costs and non-response are included in the national totals but are not shown in the local-authority dataset.
10.8 Feedback
We welcome feedback on the data from all users including how and why the data is used. This helps us to understand the value of the statistics to external users. Please see our contact details section of this notice.
10.9 Revisions Policy
Defra will provide information about any revisions made to published information in this statistics release and the associated datasets. Revisions could occur for various reasons, including when data from third parties is unavailable or revised data has been input to the Fly-tipping Module of WasteDataFlow.
In this March update, revisions have been made to the 2022/23 data for the following local authorities:
- Ealing - the number of littering fixed penalty notices issued in conjunction with fly-tipping have been updated.
- Merton - the number of fixed penalty notices issued for fly-tipping have been updated.
- Newcastle-upon-Tyne - the number of prosecutions and the prosecution outcomes have been updated.
- Nuneaton and Bedworth – the number of littering fixed penalty notices issued in conjunction with fly-tipping have been updated.
- South Holland – the number of littering fixed penalty notices issued in conjunction with fly-tipping and the number of paid fixed penalty notices have been updated.
- Stockport - the number of fixed penalty notices issued for fly-tipping, the number of fixed penalty notices for household duty of care, the number of other fixed penalty notices and the number of paid fixed penalty notices have been updated.
- Sutton - the number of littering fixed penalty notices issued in conjunction with fly-tipping have been updated.
- Wandsworth - the number of littering fixed penalty notices issued in conjunction with fly-tipping have been updated.
A detailed summary of the changes for each local authority can be found on the ‘Revisions’ tabs on each of the accompanying datasets.
These data revisions affect the number of fixed penalty notices reported, the number of paid fixed penalty notices, the number of prosecutions, prosecution outcomes, the number of enforcement actions, the national totals for these and the local authority enforcement league tables. All other sections of the notice and datasets are not affected.
Tables 4 and 5 show the impact the revisions have on the national and regional totals for the affected enforcement actions data.
Table 4: National and regional enforcement action totals – 17th January 2024 publication
| Enforcement Action | East Midlands | London | North East | North West | West Midlands | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FPNs issued specifically for fly-tipping | 773 | 12,472 | 304 | 863 | 1,463 | 20,607 |
| FPNs issued for Household Duty of Care | 77 | 3,295 | 83 | 194 | 71 | 4,667 |
| Littering FPNs issued in conjunction with fly-tipping | 2,186 | 20,983 | 1,373 | 2,066 | 1,739 | 32,035 |
| All Other FPNS issued | 1,602 | 7,356 | 140 | 2,893 | 344 | 16,007 |
| Total FPNs Actions | 4,638 | 44,106 | 1,900 | 6,016 | 3,617 | 73,316 |
| Paid FPNs | 766 | 5,713 | 235 | 977 | 96 | 9,841 |
| Prosecutions | 78 | 135 | 166 | 473 | 52 | 1,665 |
| Other successful outcomes | 4 | 6 | 26 | 3 | 1 | 57 |
| Total Enforcement Actions | 56,929 | 199,946 | 25,281 | 77,084 | 28,139 | 536,325 |
Table 5: National and regional enforcement action totals – 13th March 2024 publication
| Enforcement Action | East Midlands | London | North East | North West | West Midlands | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FPNs issued specifically for fly-tipping | 770 | 12,531 | 304 | 864 | 1,463 | 20,664 |
| FPNs issued for Household Duty of Care | 77 | 3,295 | 83 | 195 | 71 | 4,668 |
| Littering FPNs issued in conjunction with fly-tipping | 2,134 | 17,805 | 1,373 | 2,066 | 162 | 27,228 |
| All Other FPNS issued | 1,602 | 7,356 | 140 | 2,896 | 344 | 16,010 |
| Total FPNs Actions | 4,583 | 40,987 | 1,900 | 6,021 | 2,040 | 68,570 |
| Paid FPNs | 738 | 5,713 | 235 | 979 | 96 | 9,815 |
| Prosecutions | 78 | 135 | 182 | 473 | 52 | 1,681 |
| Other successful outcomes | 4 | 6 | 27 | 3 | 1 | 58 |
| Total Enforcement Actions | 56,874 | 196,827 | 25,297 | 77,089 | 26,562 | 531,595 |
Tables 6 and 7 show the impact the revisions have on the local authority fly-tipping enforcement league tables for the 8 local authorities whose data has been revised. It should be noted that the change to the number of FPNs and the FPNs per incident figures impacts on the ranking of all local authorities.
Table 6: Local authority enforcement league table ranking – 17th January 2024 publication
| Local Authority | Total FPNs | Total Incidents | FPNs per incident | Rank FPNs issued | Rank FPNs per incident |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ealing | 5,192 | 12,922 | 0.40 | 2 | 10 |
| Merton | 1,121 | 17,914 | 0.06 | 21 | 57 |
| Newcastle-upon-Tyne | 178 | 13,969 | 0.01 | 66 | 173 |
| Nuneaton and Bedworth | 1,712 | 1,870 | 0.92 | 11 | 5 |
| South Holland | 84 | 1,715 | 0.05 | 88 | 73 |
| Stockport | 0 | 2,811 | 0.00 | 267 | 267 |
| Sutton | 2,004 | 4,946 | 0.41 | 9 | 9 |
| Wandsworth | 5,236 | 6,094 | 0.86 | 1 | 6 |
Table 7: Local authority enforcement league table ranking – 13th March 2024 publication
| Local Authority | Total FPNs | Total Incidents | FPNs per incident | Rank FPNs issued (1) | Rank FPNs per incident (1) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ealing | 3,785 | 12,922 | 0.29 | 3 | 11 |
| Merton | 1,180 | 17,914 | 0.07 | 17 | 56 |
| Newcastle-upon-Tyne | 178 | 13,969 | 0.01 | 65 | 173 |
| Nuneaton and Bedworth | 135 | 1,870 | 0.07 | 71 | 55 |
| South Holland | 29 | 1,715 | 0.02 | 140 | 152 |
| Stockport | 5 | 2,811 | 0.00 | 223 | 242 |
| Sutton | 1,167 | 4,946 | 0.24 | 18 | 19 |
| Wandsworth | 4,302 | 6,094 | 0.71 | 2 | 5 |
Notes - Table 7
- The changes to the number of FPNs and the FPNs per incident figures impacts on the ranking of all local authorities.