Fly-tipping in Birmingham council area: incidents, enforcement and fines

Birmingham is not ranked against other councils because it counts only fly-tips reported by the public, not all incidents. The count was up 38% on 2023/24 (17,823).

Highways accounted for the most incidents in Birmingham: 24,064, or 98% (England 33%). Compared with England, a larger share was on commercial or industrial land (0.6% against 0.3%).

The most common kind of waste was other household waste, in 13,968 incidents (57%; England 44%). Relative to England, Birmingham had a larger share of animal carcasses (4.7% against 0.3%). Hazardous waste: 27 incidents involved asbestos, 11 incidents involved clinical waste and 45 incidents involved chemical drums, oil and fuel. Tyres were dumped in 109 incidents.

33% were a car boot load or less (England 53%). 53% were van loads (England 43%). 3,462 incidents were the size of a tipper lorry load or larger (14.0%; England 3.7%): 3,285 tipper lorry loads and 177 significant or multiple loads.

Defra's notes say that for 2024/25 the last two quarters of the council's enforcement figures were excluded over quality concerns, so they cover six months; the figures below are as published, and are not ranked or compared per incident. The council took 2,454 enforcement actions against fly-tipping in 2024/25. The most common action was investigations (1,807, 74% of all actions; England 68%).

It issued 153 fixed penalty notices (6.2% of its actions; England 8.4%): 74 for fly-tipping itself, 1 for littering alongside fly-tipping and 78 of other kinds. There were 9 prosecutions, and courts issued 9 fines totalling £28,326.

The chart shows fly-tipping incidents per 1,000 residents in Birmingham in each year from 2019/20 to 2024/25. In every year shown the council counted only fly-tips reported by the public, so the years compare with each other but not with England. It starts in 2019/20, the first year for which Defra records how each council counts incidents.

Councils record fly-tipping in different ways and some have changed how they record it, so a rise or fall can reflect recording as well as dumping.

Of the 27 councils in the West Midlands ranked for 2024/25, Rugby had the highest rate (36.7 per 1,000) and Stafford the lowest (3.2). Rugby's count went from 1,952 in 2023/24 to 4,488 in 2024/25 while England's changed by +9%, a step that may reflect a change in how the council records fly-tipping. Birmingham, Lichfield and Newcastle-under-Lyme are listed but not ranked: ranks cover only councils that count all incidents, with 100 or more in the year.

About these figures: source, Defra, fly-tipping statistics for England, local authority table (published 25 February 2026), gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. An incident is an illegal deposit of waste that a council dealt with or had reported to it, from a single black bag to multiple lorry loads; councils return the figures to Defra through WasteDataFlow each quarter.

Most fly-tipping on private land is cleared by the landowner and is not counted, and the largest and most organised dumping is dealt with by the Environment Agency, which is not included. Since 2019/20 Defra has recorded whether each council counts all incidents or only those reported by the public or found by its own staff. Councils that count only some incidents record fewer, so they, and councils that changed how they count during the year, are not ranked here. Sizes are recorded for the incidents a council investigated and cleared, so they can add up to fewer than all incidents.

Enforcement actions include investigations, warning letters, fixed penalty notices and prosecutions; court fine figures exclude fixed penalty payments. Rates are per resident, so council areas where many people work or visit but few live, such as central London, have high rates for that reason.

Rates use the population in Defra's table (ONS mid-year estimates). Defra's England total includes every council and its estimates for missing returns. On this page the England and region comparisons add up only the councils that count all incidents, and their enforcement figures leave out councils that returned no actions or only part of a year, as the ranks do; the chart's England line is Defra's total.