Countryside Alliance calls on the Government to address fly-tipping blight

The Countryside Alliance welcomes the annual release of fly-tipping figures from Defra today (30 October) which enables us to see the true picture of this problem.

With a 20% increase of fly-tipping on public land last year, and a cost to the public purse that has increased by 24% to £45.2m, it is clearly time to put a stop to this crime.

However, the figures published by Defra only represent incidents of fly-tipping on public land, and therefore only show part of the problem. Millions of landowners - from rail networks to utility companies and farmers - have to cover the cost of rubbish dumped on their private land themselves and at personal cost to the individual or organisation.

Sarah Lee, head of campaigns for the Countryside Alliance, said: "For individual landowners particularly, there is often a feeling that they are dealing with this costly problem on their own and they can feel isolated and ignored.

"Fly-tipping is anti-social and the longer we fail to tackle to the root causes of this problem the worse this is going to get. The Countryside Alliance released a report in 2007 calling for greater action, but little seems to have moved on since then. It is now time for action and we call upon the Government to work better with local authorities, landowners and other civic bodies to make this blight unacceptable."

For more information, contact Countryside Alliance head of media Charlotte Cooper on 0207 8409220 and 07500 834163 or email [email protected]

Notes for Journalists:
Key facts from the Defra report – which can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fly-tipping-in-england)

• Local Authorities dealt with a total of 852,000 incidents of fly-tipping in 2013/14, an increase of 20 per cent since 2012/13 with nearly two thirds of fly-tips involving household waste.

• This increase follows more recent year on year declines in the number of incidents. A number of local authorities have reported an increase in the number of fly-tipping incidents. Some local authorities have introduced new technologies; such as on-line reporting and electronic applications as well increased training for staff and have explained this as a factor in the increase in the number of incidents reported.

• The most common place for fly-tipping to occur was on highways, 47 per cent of total incidents in 2013/14.

• Incidents of fly-tipping on footpaths, bridleways and back alleyways increased by 15 per cent in England in 2013/14. Together these now account for 29 per cent of fly tipping incidents.

• Approximately a third of all incidents consisted of a small van load of material or less.

• The estimated cost of clearance of fly-tipping to Local Authorities in England in 2013/14 was £45.2 million, a 24 per cent increase on 2012/13.

• Local Authorities carried out nearly 500,000 enforcement actions at an estimated cost of £17.3 million, which was over a £2 million increase on the previous year. This equated to an increase of 18 per cent on enforcement actions in the same period.

• The 2007 Countryside Alliance report Fly Tipping Time for Action can be found here: http://www.countryside-alliance.org/ca/file/Time_For_Action_998.pdf