Report reveals councils in England spent £36m on fly-tip clearance in past year

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea wears the crown for having most successfully tackled its fly-tipping problem over the past year, reducing the incidence of such dirty deeds by 88%, according to the latest annual cross-council Fly-tipping Report just released by AnyJunk, the UK’s largest private bulky waste clearance company.

By contrast, the London Borough of Newham now tops the list of England’s worst fly-tipping areas, with 36,135 illegal dumps of rubbish having been cleaned up during the year across its 14 square miles, equivalent to one fly-tip for every seven residents.

Mr Mohr, though, is keen that “we should celebrate the most improved councils and share best practice rather than vilify those councils with the biggest problem.”

He said it was encouraging that the survey revealed fly-tipping overall has fallen by 15% over 2010, but reading through the figures it was obvious the problem was still severe in many areas.

Overall across the country it cost councils a total of £36-million to clear up fly-tipped rubbish during 2010/11.

The full report, including survey results for all councils in England, can be read and downloaded from the AnyJunk website at http://www.anyjunk.co.uk/fly-tipping .

Coming a close second to Newham for the worst fly-tipping during 2011 is London’s Haringey covering 11 square miles, where there were 29,499 incidents – translating to one fly-tip for each eight residents during the year under review.

Mr Mohr explained that AnyJunk conduct their annual survey to compare the relative performance of councils in England as regards fly-tipping, to better understand potential factors that influence the practice, and to identify opportunities for improvement.

The latest survey showed that measures such as councils offering free bulky waste collection, lower skip hire permits or harsher crack-downs on offenders don’t appear to have an impact on the incidence of fly-tipping.

Mr Mohr said the 2011 survey also revealed that many councils were paying “over the odds” for clearing fly-tips, with some paying more than double the national average. AnyJunk offers contracts for councils for fly-tip clearances and providing residential bulky waste collection services, and Mr Mohr said he would “help any council that wishes to review its costs”.

He also called for an urgent review of the process for convicting fly-tipper offenders, aimed at reducing significant time and money wasted by councils. The AnyJunk Fly-tipping Report reveals a successful prosecution rate of only 0.4% for 2011.