Councils carried out more enforcement action in response to illegal waste dumping last year as the number of reported incidents fell.
English local authorities reported more than a million fly-tipping incidents in 2021-22, a 4% drop on the number in 2020-21.
Despite the reduction in reported incidents, councils carried out 11% more enforcement actions in 2021-22 – a total of 507,000.
Just under 2,000 of these incidents involved a criminal prosecution action by a local authority. This represents a 172% surge on the previous year.
The number of court fines issued almost tripled, from 621 in 2020-21 to 1,798 in 2021-22, while the value of fines more than doubled to £840,000.
The number of fixed penalty notices that councils issues in relation to fly-tipping also increased – by 58% to 91,000.
