Fly-tipping is the UK's most visible waste problem and its fastest-growing one. In 2024/25 local authorities in England recorded 1.26 million incidents, a 9% jump on the previous year. To put that in plain numbers, councils dealt with around 3,450 illegal dumps every day, or roughly two every minute during working hours.
This index pulls the most recent figures from DEFRA's Fly-Tipping Statistics for England (2024/25 release) into a single, comparable view. We rank every region by incidents per 1,000 residents, list the worst-affected and cleanest councils, and break down what's being dumped, where it's ending up, and what councils are doing about it.
Headline: 1.26m incidents (+9% YoY) across England. London's eight worst-affected boroughs all sit above 70 incidents per 1,000 residents. The South West runs at one-fifth that rate. Households generate 62% of fly-tipped waste, and 37% of all incidents land on the public highway.
How fly-tipping is measured (and why per-capita matters)
Every council in England files monthly returns to DEFRA via the WasteDataFlow system. Each "incident" is one report cleared by the local authority, which means a single tipper-lorry dump and a single discarded fridge both count as one incident in the headline figure.
That makes raw counts misleading. Birmingham (population 1.2m) will record more incidents than Rutland (population 41,000) just because there are 30 times more people generating waste. Per-capita rates (incidents per 1,000 residents) are the fair comparison, and they're what we use throughout this index.
A second caveat. DEFRA itself warns that comparisons "should be made with care" because reporting practices, housing density, commuter flows, and household-recycling-centre access policies all shape the headline number. A high per-capita figure can mean a council has a real problem, or it can mean that council has invested in better reporting tools (apps, online forms) that capture incidents others would miss.
The 2026 UK Fly-Tipping Index, by region
England recorded 21 incidents per 1,000 residents on average in 2024/25. The regional spread is wide. London runs at more than two-and-a-half times the national average; the South West runs at less than half.
| Region | Incidents per 1,000 residents | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| London | 53 | 1 (worst) |
| North East | ~31 | 2 |
| West Midlands | ~28 | 3 |
| North West | ~26 | 4 |
| Yorkshire & Humber | ~22 | 5 |
| East Midlands | ~18 | 6 |
| Eastern | ~16 | 7 |
| South East | ~14 | 8 |
| South West | 9 | 9 (cleanest) |
Rates within these regions vary substantially. A few rural districts in the South East report under 5 incidents per 1,000; several inner-London boroughs report over 100. The headline regional number smooths that variation.
Top 10 worst-affected councils (per-capita)
Eight of the ten highest per-capita rates in England are London boroughs. The City of London tops the list, partly because its tiny resident population (under 9,000) means even modest absolute counts produce eye-watering rates per 1,000.
| Rank | Council | Incidents per 1,000 residents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | City of London | 172 |
| 2 | Camden | 157 |
| 3 | Hackney | 127 |
| 4 | Westminster | 121 |
| 5 | Nottingham | 93 |
| 6 | Lewisham | 92 |
| 7 | Hounslow | 92 |
| 8 | Croydon | 90 |
| 9 | Brent | 78 |
| 10 | Boston (Lincs) | 77 |
Two non-London entries stand out. Nottingham has the highest fly-tipping rate of any non-London city in England, driven by dense terraced housing without private bin storage and a high transient student population. Boston in Lincolnshire is the only district outside a major urban area in the top 20, reflecting concentrated illegal dumping along the A16 corridor and on rural verges.
The cleanest councils
At the other end, several councils recorded fewer than 2 incidents per 1,000 residents in 2024/25. The Isles of Scilly, with no recorded incidents, sits in a category of one.
| Council | Incidents per 1,000 residents |
|---|---|
| Isles of Scilly | 0 |
| Oadby and Wigston | under 2 |
| West Suffolk | under 2 |
| Amber Valley | under 2 |
| Hambleton (now North Yorkshire) | under 2 |
| Ribble Valley | under 2 |
The pattern is consistent. Low rates correlate with rural geography, single-occupancy housing with private waste storage, lower population density, and easy access to council recycling centres. None of the top-30 cleanest authorities is a major urban centre.
What's being fly-tipped?
The composition of fly-tipped waste hasn't shifted much over five years, but two categories are growing. Black-bag household waste is up 10% year-on-year; "other household" (typically furniture and bulky items) is up 14%.
| Waste type | Share of incidents |
|---|---|
| Household waste (black bags + general) | 61.7% |
| Other unidentified | 14.5% |
| Construction, demolition, excavation | 5.6% |
| Commercial waste | 5.5% |
| White goods (fridges, washing machines) | 4.8% |
| Green waste (garden) | 3.0% |
| Tyres | ~1% |
The headline takeaway. The clear majority of fly-tipping is domestic, not commercial or construction. The image of an organised criminal gang dumping a tipper-lorry of building rubble is real (52,000 of those happen annually, up 11%) but it's roughly 4% of the picture. Two-thirds of incidents fit in a car boot or smaller, and over 60% are household black bags or single bulky items.
That changes the policy framing. Most fly-tipping is a household-services problem, not an organised-waste-crime problem.
Where is it ending up?
DEFRA tracks the location type for each incident. Highways and footpaths together account for over half of all incidents in England.
| Location | Share of incidents |
|---|---|
| Highways (roads, pavements) | 36.8% |
| Footpaths and bridleways | 20.2% |
| Council land (parks, estates) | 17.7% |
| Back alleyways | 8.7% |
| Other / unidentified | 14.4% |
| Private land | ~2% |
The 2% on private land is widely accepted to be a substantial undercount. Farm fly-tipping in particular is poorly captured in DEFRA's figures because incidents on private land are reported via the National Farmers' Union and Environment Agency rather than through council channels.
Enforcement: a lot of actions, few prosecutions
English councils carried out 572,000 enforcement actions in 2024/25, up 8% year-on-year. The actions look serious in aggregate but the conversion to prosecution is thin.
| Action type | Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Investigations opened | 386,000 | 67.5% of all actions |
| Fixed Penalty Notices issued | 69,000 | Average set at £400 |
| Warning letters | 62,000 | Lowest-cost intervention |
| Statutory notices | 21,000 | Forcing landowners to clear |
| Vehicles seized | 139 | Reserved for serious offenders |
| Prosecutions | 1,377 | Down 14% YoY |
| Court fines | 1,250 | Average fine £539 |
| Total fines collected | £673,000 | Down 8% YoY |
Prosecution dropped 14% year-on-year. The gap between enforcement actions (572,000) and prosecutions (1,377) is striking. For every 415 actions a council takes, one offender is prosecuted.
Average fines remain low. £539 is well below the £20,000 statutory maximum a magistrates' court can impose, and orders of magnitude below the cost some councils incur clearing the larger incidents.
What does fly-tipping actually cost?
DEFRA's headline cost figure is the £19.3m councils spent in 2024/25 clearing the largest 52,000 incidents (tipper-lorry size and above). That number is precise but partial. It excludes:
- The cost to clear the other 1.21 million smaller incidents (estimated £80-150m annually)
- Investigation and enforcement staff time (roughly £100m annually across English councils)
- Cost to private landowners and farmers (NFU estimates £150m+ annually for the rural sector alone)
- Costs borne by the Highways Agency and Network Rail clearing motorway and rail-side incidents
Total annual cost to the UK is reasonably estimated at £350-450 million. Per English household, that's £14 to £18 a year added to council tax to clear up someone else's waste.
Why is fly-tipping rising?
Three structural factors are pushing the trend upward.
Household Recycling Centre restrictions. Many councils have tightened HWRC access since 2022. Permits, vehicle-size limits, charges for non-household waste streams (DIY rubble, plasterboard, tyres, asbestos) and reduced opening hours all raise the bar to legitimate disposal. The 2024 rise in commercial-waste-style incidents tracks closely with HWRC charging-policy changes.
Cost-of-living pressure on private waste collection. Skip hire, man-and-van clearance, and private waste contracts have all risen 15-25% since 2022 as landfill tax has increased to £103.70/tonne. For households at the margin, the temptation to dump rather than pay rises with the price gap.
Online platform "rogue trader" growth. Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree, and similar sites carry a steady volume of unlicensed "man with a van" offers. A homeowner pays £40 to "have it taken away"; the trader fly-tips the load. The homeowner is technically liable under duty of care rules but enforcement is rare.
The legitimate alternatives, skip hire or registered waste carriers, cost more upfront but carry zero risk. Always check a waste carrier's licence on the Environment Agency public register before handing over rubbish.
What's working: councils that have reduced fly-tipping
Three approaches show measurable results in the DEFRA five-year trend data:
- Bulky-waste collections at low or zero cost. Councils that offer 3-4 free bulky-waste collections per household per year see 20-30% lower fly-tipping rates than peers.
- Aggressive FPN enforcement. Authorities issuing FPNs at the £400 maximum and pursuing repeat offenders show downward incident trends. Half-hearted £100 FPNs do not.
- CCTV and forensic-evidence policies. Hot-spot CCTV with public signage shifts dumping rather than reducing it overall, but combining CCTV with prosecution of identified offenders reduces incidents over 12-24 months.
The councils with the largest year-on-year reductions in 2024/25, including parts of Greater Manchester and several South West authorities, used combinations of all three.
Methodology
Sources for this index:
- DEFRA Fly-Tipping Statistics for England 2024/25 (released March 2026)
- Local authority WasteDataFlow returns (full local-authority dataset on data.gov.uk)
- HMRC Landfill Tax receipts and rates (cost-of-disposal context)
- National Farmers' Union rural-sector cost estimates
- Keep Britain Tidy total-cost modelling
Per-capita rates calculated as DEFRA-reported incidents divided by ONS 2023 mid-year population estimates per local authority. Ranges (e.g. "~26") are used where rounded figures sit close to a regional boundary in DEFRA's published tables. Top-10 council figures are exact per the DEFRA dataset; the ~ prefix is reserved for regional aggregates that smooth district variation.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland operate separate statistical systems. Their data isn't directly comparable to DEFRA's England figures and is excluded from this index. Pan-UK numbers will follow once Welsh Government and SEPA publish their 2024/25 equivalents.
Updated annually on first publication of DEFRA's release. For citations, reference Rent-a-Skip.co.uk and the underlying DEFRA dataset.
Linkable summary
For journalists, researchers, and editors covering UK fly-tipping, the key takeaways:
- 1.26 million incidents in England in 2024/25, up 9% year-on-year
- London tops per-capita rates at 53 incidents per 1,000 residents; South West sits at 9
- Eight of the top 10 worst-affected councils are London boroughs; Nottingham and Boston are the non-London entries
- Households generate 62% of fly-tipped waste; only 4% is large-scale tipper-lorry dumping
- Highways carry 37% of incidents; private land is undercounted in official figures
- 572,000 enforcement actions led to only 1,377 prosecutions (1 in 415); average fine £539
- Total annual cost to the UK estimated at £350-450 million
- Three council policies show measurable impact: free bulky collections, full-rate FPN enforcement, CCTV combined with prosecution
The full 2026 index is at /blog/uk-fly-tipping-index-2026.
