Fewer fines for fly-tipping despite rise in illegal dumping
FINES for fly-tipping have decreased despite 20,000 more cases of illegal dumping in streets and the countryside.
Data for England showed that local authorities had to deal with 976,000 incidents of illegal waste dumping in 2019-20 – a two per cent increase on the previous year.
However, the number of fixed penalty fines handed out by councils to punish offenders fell from 77,000 to 75,400 – a two per cent decrease.
The cross-party District Councils’ Network said that rural communities in particular were increasingly being blighted by the unlawful practice, with the number of fly-tipping incidents on agricultural spots rising by 80 per cent from 888 in 2012-13 to 1,600 in 2019-20, according to data published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Cllr Dan Humphreys, the DCN’S lead member for enhancing quality of life, said that criminals were becoming more savvy about not leaving behind identifying information, which could be contributing to the fall in fines.
“We are beginning to see a possible
trend where people are being more careful not to leave any evidence in the fly-tips, which makes it harder for councils to catch offenders,” he said.
However, while fixed penalty notices fell, more serious court-ordered fines rose 30 per cent, from 2,056 to 2,671.
The statistics did not take into account the impact of the pandemic, which meant the temporary closure of some waste disposal sites, as they covered only the first week of the first lockdown, imposed on March 23 last year.
But a survey of councils by the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport conducted over the past year showed many had reported higher levels of fly-tipping. The official data showed that even before the pandemic, fly-tipping of household rubbish was on the rise, with 632,000 incidents in 2019/20 – up 7 per cent from 588,000 cases in 2018/19.
Household rubbish accounts for nearly two thirds of the waste illegally dumped, while fly-tipping most commonly occurs on pavements or roads, making up 43 per cent of incidents.