Figures published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show that RSN members North Somerset Council are amongst the top 20 local authorities issuing fixed penalty notices (FPN) for fly-tipping.

In 2021/22, they dealt with 1,212 incidents of fly-tipping, carried out 1,416 enforcement actions including issuing 1,143 FPN.  It comes as the wider results show an increase in councils using these powers to tackle the issue.

Whilst London remains the area with the highest proportion of incidents, highways, footpaths and council owned lands are the areas seeing the biggest number of incidents.

Household waste accounts for the largest type of waste dumped, with small van loads being the largest amount being recorded.

Nationally, for the 2021/22 year, local authorities in England dealt with 1.09 million fly-tipping incidents, which DEFRA says is a decrease of 4% from the 1.14 million reported in 2020/21. Meanwhile, councils carried out 507,000 enforcement actions in 2021/22, an increase of 52,000 actions (11%) from 455,000 in 2020/21.  The data shows that of the top 20 local authorities, 12 were in London.

Responding to a written question from Dr Neil Hudson MP (Con, Penrith & The Border) about the government’s approach to fly-tipping, DEFRA Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Rebecca Pow MP (Con, Taunton Deane) promised more help for councils:

“The PM’s Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan sets out how we will help councils take tougher action against those who fly-tip.

“We significantly raised the upper limit of on-the-spot fines in July, to £1,000 for fly-tipping and £600 for householders who give their waste to an unauthorised waste carrier. We have also increased transparency on the use of these fines by publishing league tables on fly-tipping enforcement and consulted stakeholders on ringfencing the money raised from fines for enforcement and clean up activity.

“This builds on the £1.2m Defra has provided in grant funding to help more than 30 councils implement projects cracking down on fly-tipping. We intend to launch another grant opportunity for councils later this year.”

League table published by DEFRA: