Fly tipping increased in East England by 30 percent
Almost 80 thousand cases of the incident were recorded in the region between April 2020 and March 2021.
Last updated 12th Dec 2021
New figures from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show an increase in fly-tipping across the East of England.
There were 79,726 incidents of fly-tipping recorded between April 2020 and March 2021, compared to 61,423 in the same period between 2019 and 2020. The data also shows that of the nearly eighty thousand cases recorded, action was taken only in 44,316 cases, in other words just over half of them
Alison Provis is the Eastern regional surveyor for the Country Land and Business Association, who work to address the needs of rural land, property and business owners across the UK. She says they are worried about this rise in fly-tipping incidents.
"A lot of the period where this was studied was during lockdown. Lots of people were at home doing DIY projects and things like that. The waste tips weren't open in a lot of places to dispose off waste.
"There were also a lot of these white van opportunities to get rid of your waste for £20 or £50 pound a load, which is much cheaper compared to what it would cost to dispose of it properly through the waste recycling centres . And inevitably it's that type of household waste which then gets fly-tipped."
In the 44,316 cases where action was taken, only 4006 fixed penalty notices were issued, other actions included investigations and the issuing of warning letters. Mr Provis believes that more should be done to prosecute those who offend.
" We're seeing in the courts and that's even if even if you get caught, the stats this year for the East region shows that There were 34 incidents that resulted in court fines and and only five of those were over £500. So out of thousands of incidents, you're talking about a tiny percentage that gets fined.
"It's just not enough to be stopping people from fly-tipping."
So what can be done to reduce this type of behaviour? Ms Provis believes local authorities must ensure that there are adequate channels by which waste of all kinds can be collected promptly, so that residents don't have to turn to third-party collectors, who maybe unlicensed.
"Local authorities really have a part to play and should offer the public schemes lthat they can tap into to really stop it from even happening. The local authority can get there first before the homeowner can can find alternative ways of disposing of it, which obviously then end up via illegal disposal.
"Fundamentally, they are a public health hazard. They create vermin problems and its not something that we should allow to increase whatsoever.
"I think we also need to be making it more socially unacceptable to be doing this and making sure that people are vigilant. We're looking at ways of promoting education and working in partnership with with other industry stakeholders and sectors to really step up the work around fly-tipping to make sure that it's stopped so that it doesn't gets to the stage of the stats that we're seeing this year."