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

Bolton is not ranked against other councils because it counts only fly-tips reported by the public, not all incidents. The count was up 6% on 2023/24 (7,114).

Back alleyways accounted for the most incidents in Bolton (2,830, 37%). 14% of incidents were on highways, against 33% across England. 107 were on private or residential land (1.4%; England 1.1%).

Compared with England, a larger share was on watercourses and banks (0.5% against 0.2%) and council land (28.7% against 18.4%).

The most common kind of waste was other household waste, in 3,278 incidents (43%; England 44%). Relative to England, Bolton had a larger share of clinical waste (0.3% against 0.1%) and black bags (household) (26.7% against 17.2%). Hazardous waste: 28 incidents involved asbestos, 22 incidents involved clinical waste and 30 incidents involved chemical drums, oil and fuel. Tyres were dumped in 41 incidents.

26% were a car boot load or less (England 53%). 62% were van loads (England 43%). 934 incidents were the size of a tipper lorry load or larger (12.4%; England 3.7%): 396 tipper lorry loads and 538 significant or multiple loads.

The council took 972 enforcement actions against fly-tipping in 2024/25. The most common action was investigations (515, 53% of all actions; England 68%). It issued 194 fixed penalty notices (20.0% of its actions; England 8.4%): 71 for fly-tipping itself, 9 to householders who passed waste to an unlicensed carrier (household duty of care), 113 for littering alongside fly-tipping and 1 of other kinds.

86 fixed penalty notices were recorded as paid in the year. The council told Defra that its fixed penalty for fly-tipping is £600, reduced to £450 for early payment. There were 25 prosecutions, and courts issued 23 fines totalling £6,467 and 1 community sentence was given.

The chart shows fly-tipping incidents per 1,000 residents in Bolton in each year from 2022/23 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. The series starts in 2022/23 because the count went from 1,184 in 2021/22 to 5,883 in 2022/23 while England's changed by −1%; a step that large (more than double or less than half England's change) is treated here as a change in how the council records fly-tipping, so earlier years are not compared.

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 31 councils in the North West ranked for 2024/25, Pendle had the highest rate (62.0 per 1,000) and Halton the lowest (3.6). Bolton, Burnley and St. Helens 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.