Fly-tipping is now one of the most reported environmental crimes in England. In 2023/24, local authorities recorded a record 1.15 million incidents — a 6% rise on the previous year, and the highest figure since the current reporting method was introduced. Yet enforcement remains wildly uneven. Some councils pursue offenders with the full toolkit of fixed penalty notices, court summonses and asset seizures. Others issue almost nothing.
When you rank councils by the total value of fly-tipping fines issued, one authority sits in a league of its own. Manchester City Council issued nearly four times more in fines than any other council in England — a £132,324 total that dwarfs even the largest London boroughs.
The Top 10
The following figures cover total fly-tipping fines issued by local authorities during the 2023/24 reporting year, based on data submitted through WasteDataFlow and published by Defra.
- 01Manchester£132,324
- 02Kingston-upon-Hull£63,548
- 03South Gloucestershire£47,902
- 04Enfield£42,263
- 05Blackburn with Darwen£32,838
- 06Birmingham£28,326
- 07Buckinghamshire£19,670
- 08Redbridge£17,284
- 09Bury£15,610
- 10Havering£15,511
Why Manchester is so far ahead
The gap between first and second place tells its own story. Manchester's £132,324 represents a 32% increase on the city's 2022/23 total, and the council alone accounts for around 70% of every pound issued in fines across the entire North West region. Step further back and the trend is even sharper: in the six years between 2018/19 and 2023/24, Manchester raised the total value of fines it issued by more than 125% compared with the previous six-year period.
This is enforcement as a deliberate strategy. The council records roughly 15,000 fly-tipping incidents a year, with most occurring on roads, pavements and back alleys — the kind of dumping that is highly visible to residents and, increasingly, to CCTV and mobile enforcement crews. The council's own published strategy for 2026 onwards frames enforcement as one of three pillars alongside cleansing and prevention.
The pattern outside Manchester
The rest of the top 10 is more eclectic than you might expect. Three London boroughs — Enfield, Redbridge and Havering — appear, which fits with the broader Defra picture: most of England's worst-affected areas for fly-tipping incidents are concentrated in the capital, with Croydon alone recording more than 35,000 incidents in 2023/24.
But the list also includes authorities that don't usually feature in waste-crime headlines. South Gloucestershire's £47,902 is striking for a largely suburban and semi-rural area. Blackburn with Darwen and Bury both punch well above their population weight. Buckinghamshire, the only shire county on the list, reflects an enforcement model that scales across a much larger geographic footprint.
What unites them is less about the scale of their fly-tipping problem and more about the willingness to use the powers available. Two councils with similar incident rates can issue radically different fine totals depending on how aggressively they pursue fixed penalty notices and how often they refer cases for prosecution.
What the powers actually look like
Since 2023, councils in England have been able to issue fixed penalty notices of up to £1,000 for fly-tipping, up from the previous £400 cap. Cases that proceed to a Magistrates' Court can result in fines of up to £50,000 or 12 months' imprisonment, and at Crown Court the financial penalty is unlimited, with custodial sentences of up to five years available for the most serious offences. Vehicles used to fly-tip can be seized and crushed.
Across England, councils carried out 528,000 enforcement actions in 2023/24, issuing 63,000 fixed penalty notices and securing 1,378 court convictions worth £730,000 in fines — an average court fine of £530. Fixed penalty notices remain the workhorse: they account for around 12% of all enforcement actions and don't require a court appearance, making them by far the cheapest tool for councils to deploy.
What this means if you handle waste
For households and businesses, the takeaway is straightforward. The duty of care that has applied to commercial waste producers for decades was extended to householders in 2018: if you hand your waste to someone who fly-tips it, you can be fined up to £400 yourself, regardless of whether you knew. In the highest-enforcement councils on this list, that fine is a realistic prospect rather than a theoretical one.
The simplest protections are also the most boring ones: check that any waste carrier you hire is registered with the Environment Agency, ask for a waste transfer note for every collection, and keep a record of where your waste was taken. A registered carrier and a complete WTN trail are what stand between you and a liability finding if your waste turns up in a hedge two miles away.
A note on the figures
Defra confirmed in 2024 that it would no longer publish official local-authority enforcement league tables, on the basis that comparisons can be misleading: councils that report high numbers are often the ones being most rigorous in identifying and recording incidents, not the ones with the worst underlying problem. The figures above should be read in that spirit. A high total reflects enforcement effort — not necessarily the scale of fly-tipping in the area.
The councils at the bottom of the table aren't necessarily cleaner. They may simply be quieter.