Revenue earner: new government guidance will allow councils like Croydon to fine fly-tippers up to £5,000
Where there’s muck, there’s brass, as the old saying goes, and someone in government may have stumbled across a sure-fire way of Croydon Council paying off some of its debts.
Whitehall has approved hiking fines for fly-tipping to a new maximum of £5,000 a time.
With official figures showing Croydon to be the fly-tipping capital of England, with 1,000 fly-tips recorded on average every week, according to DEFRA’s most recent data, that could mean as much as £260million in fly-tip fines for the cash-strapped council in a year. Kerr-ching!
If only Croydon’s failed Mayor, Jason Perry, had a sure-fire way of catching the fly-tipping criminals, he might go a long way to easing the council’s financial problems while actually getting the borough’s streets cleaned up.
According to DEFRA, there were more than 53,000 reported fly-tips in Croydon in 2024-2025. The government figures relate to rubbish illegally dumped on public land.
Rubbish contractors: lack of enforcement since 2023 and poor performance by contractors Veolia leave Croydon streets strewn with rubbish
But under “Zero Tolerance” Perry, Croydon issued just 310 Fixed Penalty Notices between April 2025 and February 2026 – a somewhat derisory average of 28 fines per month.
Under the old regime, on-the-spot fly-tip fines have ranged from £400 to £1,000, although repeat offenders or those behind industrial-scale tips might be dragged through court, where prosecution can lead to fines and costs of as much as £8,000.
Such prosecutions in Croydon, however, are rare.
The government crackdown on a national scourge would increase the automatic fine by 400%, while the top fine for littering on streets increased to £750, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced, with the new fines to come into force this summer.
“We are sending a clear message to those who dump their rubbish – we are coming after you and you will pay the price,” government minister Emma Reynolds said when announcing the fines increase.
Local authorities such as Croydon will retain full discretion over the level of fine issued, with “penalties scaled to reflect the severity of the offence”, according to DEFRA. This would ensure “that punishments remain proportionate”.
The government has provided instructions on identifying and seizing vehicles involved in fly-tipping in its latest guidance – a policy which was abandoned in Croydon when Jason Perry became Mayor and in 2023 made the council’s enforcement team redundant.
Oh.
Read more: Croydon has worst fly-tipping record in whole of England
Read more: Kafkaesque world of contractors clearing 98% of fly-tips
Read more: ‘London’s filthiest borough’ hands £40m rubbish deal to Veolia
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These fly tippers will never pay a £5k fine. They know there will not go to prison too and most really don’t care about having their vehicle scrapped.
Croydon’s failed mayor, Piss-Poor Perry, is too slow even to catch a cold most of the time, but if Croydon gets 1,000 fly-tips in an average week, then in the unlikely event that fatty Perry could catch all of them and fine them all the max. £5k, that would generate £5m a week in income. That wouldn’t clear a £1.6 bn debt instantly/very quickly, but it would be good start, from a lying mayor who said when first elected that he was going to “fix the finances” and has done nothing of the sort and just increased the debt more !?!
It’s £1.7billion, Jim.
And if they caught and fined every single fly-tipper (which ain’t gonna happen) and if tips on public property continued at a rate of 1,000 per week, using no other finance from the council, it would repay the capital on its debts by 2033.
Where that would leave the interest on the debt, we’ll leave with that financial genius, Mayor Perry.
One of the reasons why Croydon appears to be a fly tip magnet is because there is so little enforcement in Croydon.
Take a few more fly tippers to court and the message will soon get round.
Perhaps if the council did more to publicise it’s own service (£ 40.40 for 1-3 bulk items and £ 65.39 for 4-6) some people would be more willing to use it than bung someone else to take it away and know it won’t be dumped a few streets away?
Higher fines could be a strong deterrent, but only if enforcement is effective. Catching more offenders would not only help clean up Croydon’s streets but also reduce the significant costs that illegal dumping places on the community.
Jason Perry, these people do not have £5k in their bank accounts! Most people don’t pay parking fines these days and after a few years it all gets written off…
The courts are a joke, just like you!
When the enforcement team was axed in 2023 our council tax went up 15% and we borrowed another £60 million. It’s not just Jason Perry’s responsibility, only three of our 70 esteemed councillors voted against this. Labour infamously abstained and hope everyone has forgotten.
If we had more sensible councillors the enforcement team would be turning a nice little profit right now and we would be living in a nicer, cleaner Croydon.
Effective enforcement, acting as a deterrent, is obviously needed to tackle this issue, but Council policies have been a significant factor with reported fly-tips increasing by 400% during Perry’s first term in office.
The removal of the NSOs meant that alongside enforcement other activities such as managing the waste collection system for flats above shops and commercial waste went entirely unmanaged. Checks on trade waste contracts completely stopped and the issue escalated that general waste was increasingly supplemented by additional fly-tipping of appliances, furniture, mattresses, etc. creating hundreds of hot spots where those residents/shops are required to leave waste out on the pavement.
Ever increasing costs – council tax, business rates, energy, garden waste subscription, bulky waste costs, etc. during a cost of living crisis has also contributed to negative behaviours.
In his 2022 manifesto Perry made a commitment to remove the bulky waste charges “at the earliest opportunity”. That pledge appears to have conveniently fallen by the wayside with no questions being asked as to why?