25 Feb FLY-TIPPING REMAINS A CONSIDERABLE CONCERN FOR EAST OF ENGLAND
Earlier today, the government released the latest statistics around fly-tipping in England. The concerning figures showed that this anti-social behaviour continues to be a major problem across the East of England. In spite of a drop in incidents by 10% during 2019/2020 compared with the previous year, East of England still reported 61,423 cases. This is despite the government recently giving councils greater powers to tackle fly-tipping and an increase in court fines related to fly-tipping cases across the country.
In 2019, the government advised that there had been 957,000 fly-tipping incidents across England during 2018/2019. Sadly, figures have increased during 2019/2020 to a total of 976,000. However, based on a breakdown of figures by region, the East of England reported a drop in fly-tipping incidents with 61,423 cases reported in 2019/2020 compared with 67,792 in 2018/2019. Chelmsford has managed to halve fly-tipping cases at 140 in 2019/2020 down from an already low 284 in 2018/2019. While, Peterborough reported 6,820 cases in 2019/2020 with the highest number of fly-tipping cases in the region, despite lowering numbers from the previous year of 7,282.
Waste removal experts HIPPO believes the continuing high fly-tipping statistics stems largely from a long-term issue found in the limited public awareness around this important matter.
Gareth Lloyd-Jones, Managing Director of HIPPO, comments:
“We believe there is a need to better educate people on the impact of fly-tipping, in order to encourage a sea-change in this concerning trend. It is not only damaging to the environment and local wildlife but also potentially dangerous to public health. There needs to be a concerted nationwide effort to discourage this anti-social behaviour. This is why we’re helping to expose fly-tipping figures across England in the hope that the greater awareness will encourage the public to join us in our drive against this damaging practice.”
HIPPO has released maps and infographics to make the government fly-tipping statistics clearer and more digestible. These visual tools show quite clearly what parts of the UK are most struggling to control fly-tipping behaviours and where greater effort is required to drive down fly-tipping incidents.
Currently, statistics show that the highest number of cases were found in the London Borough of Camden with 34,465 reported incidents – a considerable increase from 25,765 in 2018/2019. The second to lowest reported incidents came from the Yorkshire Borough of Oadby & Wigston, with only 4 cases – a decrease on the already low 17 reported cases of last year. The Isles of Scilly has reported no incidents for the past two years.
