ZERO TOLERANCE ON FLY TIPPING ESSENTIAL AS GMB STUDY SHOWS POOR LEVELS OF ACTION BY SOME LONDON COUNCILS ON 360,000 INCIDENTS IN LONDON IN 2019/20 

Some councils take far too little action and Councils like Bexley, Barking and Dagenham, Bromley, Kingston upon Thames and Harrow, at bottom of the London league, must up their games for action on fly tipping says GMB London

Camden topped the league table of London boroughs with the highest number (34,465) of fly tipping incidents recorded in 2019/20. The other boroughs in the top five were Brent with 34,197, Croydon 25,532, Harringey 22,972 and Hounslow 22,480.

This is according to a new study of fly tipping incidents in London from official data by GMB the union for refuse and street cleaning workers. The sources and definitions for the data are set in notes to editors below. 

Overall across London as a whole some 360,080 incidents of fly tipping were recorded in 2019/20. This was an increase of 11% on the previous year.  The number of incidents recorded in each borough in London, ranked by the number of incidents,  are set out in the Table below with the % change on the previous year.

The data on the costs of dealing with fly tipping by borough is not included in the Table this year as the information provided by councils is too patchy. Data on the numbers of prosecutions in the courts on fly tipping incidents is even more patchy still, indicating a very low levels of prosecutions.

Also set out in the Table are the numbers of action taken by borough councils to combat and punish fly tippers. In 2019/20, the five councils with the highest number of actions are: Camden (40457), Wandsworth (14617), Waltham Forest (14355), Redbridge (7560) and Ealing (6791). In 2019/20, the five councils with the least number of actions are: Bexley (102), Barking and Dagenham (157), Bromley (211), Kingston upon Thames (482) and Harrow (553).  This colum is an important indicator of the levels of priority given to the issue in each borough council.