Since Croydon’s Conservative Mayor Jason Perry was elected in 2022, there have been just four successful prosecutions brought by the council for criminal fly-tipping in the borough.
Scourge of Croydon: there was a time when the council brought prosecutions for fly-tips such as this
That’s according to a Freedom of Information response to an enquiry submitted by Tony Hooker of the Litter-Free Norbury campaign.
This latest discovery will torpedo the Croydon Mayor’s claims to be serious about cleaning up the borough and making fly-tippers pay for their crimes.
The bald figures provided under the FoI show the impact of the covid lockdown in 2020 and 2021, when no figures are recorded at all for fly-tipping prosecutions.
There were two prosecutions in 2022 (Perry was elected in May of that year), and then a single prosecution in 2023 and again in 2024.
In 2017, the council logged 171 prosecutions for fly-tipping. Two people were sent to prison. The successful prosecutions included a landlord and its company director whose South Norwood property was used as an illegal rubbish dump, and received fines totalling £9,000 under the council’s Don’t Mess With Croydon campaign.
The council also seized 32 vehicles used for fly-tipping in the same year.
In 2018, Croydon Council prosecuted 196 people for fly-tipping and littering.
The specialist, but small, team of council officials was disbanded the following year as a cost-cutting measure. And in 2019, there was a single fly-tipping prosecution.
Sorry statistics: Mayor Jason Perry hasn’t had council staff spending time and money to publicise these ‘shocking’ figures
Fly-tipping is the illegal dumping of waste, including household, industrial, and commercial waste, a criminal offence under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
The maximum penalty is a fine of up to £50,000, or up to five years in prison, or both.
It was Hooker’s previous diligent work that exposed how the council had 1,000 litter bins removed from the borough’s streets, just to make the collection rounds by rubbish contractors Veolia quicker, and cheaper, while leaving Croydon’s pavements strewn with rubbish.
The council figures obtained by Hooker show that over the past five years (2020 to 2024) there have been just 14 prosecutions for littering in Croydon.
The figures also show zero prosecutions for graffiti and fly-posting.
“The lack of enforcement is shocking, but I guess not very surprising,” Hooker said when posting the figures on social media.
“Hardly being tough on crime is it Jason Perry?” he added.
“It is an unfortunate situation, but whilst fly-tippers know they can get away with it with impunity the situation will only get worse.”
Hooker is pursuing the matter with his local MP, environment secretary Steve Reed OBE, because Croydon Council has opted not to use as evidence the CCTV footage provided by residents, from their door bell cameras and other security devices. The council has told Hooker that anyone providing such video evidence has to be willing to go to court.
“Almost without exception, that always means the case is immediately dropped,” Hooker says. “A nice get-out, as the alternative might require someone to do some work!”
Read more: #Binmageddon: Now Croydon named worst in UK for fly-tipping
Read more: Croydon’s fly-tip prosecution record is 2nd worst in all England
Read more: Council finally starts work to clear its own Waddon fly-tip
Read more: Residents’ despair over vile fly-tips, including a pig’s head
- Inside Croydon has moved to Bluesky. Click here to join us there for latest updates and insights
Check out our archive of podcasts on Spotify, including our monthly news discussion panel show thingy, the Croydon Insider, and The Andrew Fisher Interview
FREE ADS: Paid-up subscribers to Inside Croydon qualify for a free ad for their business, residents’ association or community group, just one of the benefits of being part of our online community. For more information about being an iC subscriber, click here for our Patreon page
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
Tony’s persistence over fly-tipping is admirable but I don’t think appealing to the intransigent Steve Reed is going to get him anywhere, even if he is his MP.
Even fly-tippers never “Messed with Croydon” THAT much; most of the people who have, and still do, mess with Croydon the most, work for or represent Croydon Council, making that slogan very hypocritical !
Jim, just to clarify – I wrote to, and had a meeting with, Steve Reed not specifically as my MP to assist with the issue of fly-tipping n Croydon, but as Secretary of State for the Environment.
I requested if his government department can confirm the legal aspects of submission of CCTV footage to local authorities to aid in prosecutions.
I wish to know whether Croydon Council’s assertion that the member of the public submitting the footage has to agree to go to court for any enforcement action to be taken has any legal basis.
If that isn’t the case, then we know Croydon Council is guilty of taking the easy option of not bothering to follow-up cases that we (Litter Free Norbury) have tried to assist residents with bringing to them.
If what CC has been saying does have legal basis, then government needs to review this.
If residents supply evidence and are willing to provide a witness statement to effectively swear on the footage I would think this should be sufficient. Why then should they have to agree to attend court if the case when that far?
Ironic thing is, if CC fined every fly tipper in Croydon £50k each they could probably clear their £1.3bn debt!!!!
But ppl don’t respect the law / police anymore or have sense to be part of a community…. sad times
CC cannot fine fly-tippers £50k – that’s for the courts to decide. Average penalties are hundreds and way too small imho
Don’t know what anyone really expects when you disband the only specialist team formed to deal with this scourge, but just focusing at a local council level when it is clear that this is now an enterprise carried out by organised units across London requires it to be dealt at the higher London council level. Taking regulation away from Mr Perry would probably be the best thing that could happen to Croydon and just treating the matter with deeds than the empty words of old part time would be a start.
There is rubbish dumped under the railway bridge in Selhurst on a weekly basis. You could nab people all year long but instead its left to the public to report the fly tipping repeatedly. Total disgrace .. Perry should be ashamed for not instigating proactive anti tipping control in frequent abuse areas.
Our Neighbour hood watch sent footage of a fly tip happening in my road… so far no action….worst of all it was a resident and their address is known !!!
Neighbour ‘hood watch’ sounds appropriate. Does Ice Cube live on your benighted street?
Analysis of the fly-tipping data to which Mr Hooker was signposted by Croydon Council in the response to his Freedom of Information request (https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/finesprosecutions_relating_to_en) reveals just how bad things have got under part-time Perry and his silent smiling sidekick, Scott Roche
year – fly-tipping – Fixed Penalty Notice fines
2013/14 – 291 – £21,825
2014/15 – 316 – £23,740
2015/16 – 415 – £33,270
2016/17 – 376 – £32,000
2017/18 – 452 – £39,400
2018/19 – 256 – £19,350
2019/20 – 313 – £54,950
2020/21 – 546 – £92,450
2021/22 – 130 – £26,500
2022/23 – 41 – £7,400
2023/24 – 4 – £850
2024/25 – 5 – £1,000
For dirtier streets, vote Conservative
Tells you all you need to know about Perry and Roche. All empty words and no effective action. No wonder it seems like fly tipping is the norm in Croydon under these Do Nothing Inaction Men.