The government must ensure that new powers allowing local authorities to offer conditional cautions to fly-tipping offenders do not become a substitute for stronger enforcement against waste crime, the Countryside Alliance has warned. Responding to a government consultation launched on 20 August, the Alliance expressed cautious support in limited circumstances but warned the scheme is unlikely to make a significant contribution to tackling fly-tipping.

Under the proposals, offenders could avoid prosecution by agreeing to conditions including paying a reparative sum and undertaking community work, such as clearing rubbish or graffiti. The Alliance agreed this could have some deterrent value for minor, non-commercial offences, but questioned how far the proposal fulfils the Labour Manifesto commitment that “fly-tippers and vandals will also be forced to clean up the mess they have created”. Practical and legal difficulties with requiring offenders to clear the waste that they themselves dumped mean that the proposed conditional caution is necessarily much narrower.

The Alliance had previously been sceptical that the original pledge could, in practice, be delivered. It would require dumped waste to be left in place during investigation and enforcement, while hazardous waste could not safely be cleared by offenders who are unqualified to handle it. The conditional caution approach is therefore more realistic, but its scope is comparatively limited.

A separate concern is how conditional cautions will interact with the recently introduced environmental permitting regime for waste carriers, brokers and dealers. The consultation suggests conditional cautions are most likely to be used where there is no commercial motive, but identifying a commercial motive may depend on the diligence of the investigation. There is therefore a risk that conditional cautions could cause opportunities to be missed to identify rogue operators who should have their waste registration revoked. Because a conditional caution is not a criminal conviction, it is also unclear whether the Environment Agency could use one as the basis for removing an operator from the waste register.

The Alliance has called for local authorities to liaise with the Environment Agency before offering a conditional caution to determine whether the offender is operating, or connected to a business operating, under a waste registration. Where a caution is nevertheless offered and accepted, the Environment Agency should be empowered to consider whether the offender should retain that registration.

Stepping back, the Countryside Alliance believes there are more effective ways of deterring fly-tipping than conditional cautions. Its consultation response draws on Breaking the Cycle: Tackling Fly-Tipping and Waste Crime – A Roadmap for Reform, a policy report authored by the Alliance and published in June 2026 by Future Countryside and the National Rural Crime Network. The report contains 18 evidence-based recommendations for tackling fly-tipping and waste crime.

These include making legitimate waste disposal easier through minimum standards for local authority sites; strengthening enforcement against owners and drivers of vehicles used in fly-tipping; tackling companies that evade penalties; ensuring serious rogue waste operators are deregistered; making the waste carrier register easier for householders and businesses to use; and improving public awareness of waste-carrier checks and legal duties of care.

Conditional cautions may have a role to play in dealing with lower-level offences, but they must complement – not replace – effective investigation, prosecution and regulatory action.

With fly-tipping continuing to blight rural communities and the countryside, the government needs a comprehensive approach that tackles both the symptoms and causes of waste crime, while ensuring that serious offenders face meaningful consequences.

You can read our full response to the consultation by clicking here.