Fly-tipping cases have reached a record high of 1.15 million in England, new government figures have revealed.
For the 2023/24 year, local authorities had to deal with an increase of 6% from the 1.08 million reported in 2022/23. It’s the highest number in the six years since the current method for reporting was brought in.
Local authorities that reported the most amount of fly tipping incidences were in the South East and Nottingham. The Country Land & Business Association (CLA) believes the reported figures only tell a fraction of the story.
A new snapshot survey of CLA members found that 90% of respondents had been victims of fly-tipping in the past 12 months, with waste such as tyres, cannabis farm vegetation, nitrous oxide canisters, cooking oil drums, mattresses, fridges and sofas dumped on their land.
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The CLA represents around 26,000 rural businesses across England and Wales. Almost 40% of the survey respondents said they had experienced at least six separate incidents in the past year, and more than 75% said fly-tipping has a significant financial impact on their business.
"We have made our farms into medieval forts"
Colin Rayner, whose family farm in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Surrey, said: “The Rayner family farms have incidents of fly-tipping every day, from a bag of garden waste to lorry loads of waste.
“We have made our farms into medieval forts to try to reduce large loads of waste been tipped on the farms. The cost to the family in terms of extra security, clearing up the waste and threats from the fly-tipping gangs is too much to bear at times.”
"Farmers and the countryside are being targeted by organised crime gangs"
Nearly 12 months ago, before the general election, Labour pledged to establish a rural crime strategy, but it remains unpublished.
Regional Director of CLA South East, Tim Bamford, said: “Rural communities have had enough of fly-tipping and waste crime, and the government must act.
"Farmers and the countryside are increasingly being targeted by organised crime gangs – often violent – who know that rural areas are under-policed. The long-promised rural crime strategy needs to be published as soon as possible.
“It’s not just litter blotting the landscape, but tonnes of household and commercial waste, which can often be hazardous – even including asbestos and chemicals – endangering farmers, wildlife, livestock, crops and the environment."
Bamford continued: "As Labour itself has pointed out, the crime rate in rural areas has surged by 32 per cent since 2011, faster than in urban areas. People, communities and businesses deserve to feel safe and protected, and the first place to start must surely be ending the chronic under-funding of rural police forces."
Last year the CLA lodged freedom of information requests that revealed many rural areas in England and Wales have no dedicated rural officers, ringfenced police funding or forces with basic kit such as torches.
The CLA approached 36 police forces operating in rural areas, and found five have no rural crime team, and eight have less than ten dedicated rural officers.
More on rural issues:
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- John Craven: The worrying surge in rural crime
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