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

Burnley is not ranked against other councils because it counts only fly-tips reported by the public, not all incidents. The count was up 16% on 2023/24 (3,638).

Back alleyways accounted for the most incidents in Burnley (2,197, 52%). 9% of incidents were on highways, against 33% across England. Compared with England, a larger share was on agricultural land (6.1% against 0.3%) and commercial or industrial land (0.8% against 0.3%).

The most common kind of waste was other household waste, in 2,115 incidents (50%; England 44%). Hazardous waste: 20 incidents involved chemical drums, oil and fuel. Tyres were dumped in 22 incidents. The waste type was not identified for 12% of incidents.

48% were a car boot load or less (England 53%). 52% were van loads (England 43%). None was recorded as a tipper lorry load or larger (England 3.7%).

The council took 5,460 enforcement actions against fly-tipping in 2024/25. The most common action was investigations (4,205, 77% of all actions; England 68%). It issued 206 fixed penalty notices (3.8% of its actions; England 8.4%): 42 for fly-tipping itself, 9 to householders who passed waste to an unlicensed carrier (household duty of care), 149 for littering alongside fly-tipping and 6 of other kinds.

53 fixed penalty notices were recorded as paid in the year. The council told Defra that its fixed penalty for fly-tipping is £400. There were 12 prosecutions, and courts issued 12 fines totalling £4,199.

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.