What can be done about fly-tipping?

It’s one of the great scourges of the modern countryside – and it’s getting worse.

- Fergus Collins

Fly-tipping – the illegal dumping of rubbish on public land, farmland, laybys and country lanes – has soared to an all-time high in England, according to new statistics released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

In 2024–25, 1.26m fly-tipping incidents were recorded by local authorities, an increase of almost 9% on the 1.15m reported for the previous year. These figures do not include waste cleared by private landowners from their land.

Convicted fly-tippers can receive a significant fine, a community sentence or even a prison sentence. While fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping have increased by 9% over the past year, court fines have decreased by the same percentage. The picture in parts of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is similarly dismal. Many fly-tippers are getting away with it.

It’s not just the odd mattress or bag of nappies. Some of the worst instances involve massive volumes of waste. For example, a 40-tonne “mountain” of building, household and organic rubbish was dumped on Tinker Lane near Barnby Moor in Nottinghamshire in early 2026 and in Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, an entire motorboat was abandoned on farmland. Some 21,000 tonnes of mixed domestic and commercial rubbish was fly-tipped in 2025 between the River Cherwell and the A34 near Kidlington in Oxfordshire – the cleanup cost £7.3m.

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