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

Among the 267 councils in England that count all incidents, Colchester had the 62nd highest rate of fly-tipping per resident in 2024/25. Of the 44 ranked councils in the East of England, it had the 10th highest rate. No change on the year is given: the count went from 1,962 in 2023/24 to 4,348 in 2024/25 while England's changed by +9%; 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.

The region and England columns add up the 44 councils in the East of England and the 269 in England that count all incidents. In England, 26 councils that count only some incidents or changed how they count during the year, and 1 with no figure, are left out. The enforcement figures also leave out 4 councils that returned no actions or only part of a year: Isles of Scilly, Cheltenham, Chorley and Liverpool.

Highways accounted for the most incidents in Colchester: 3,177, or 73% (England 33%).

The most common kind of waste was other household waste, in 2,210 incidents (51%; England 44%). Relative to England, Colchester had a larger share of black bags (commercial) (4.7% against 2.4%). Hazardous waste: 9 incidents involved asbestos, 2 incidents involved clinical waste and 19 incidents involved chemical drums, oil and fuel. Tyres were dumped in 40 incidents.

2% were a car boot load or less (England 53%). 98% were van loads (England 43%). None was recorded as a tipper lorry load or larger (England 3.7%).

The council took 154 enforcement actions against fly-tipping in 2024/25, 3.5 for every 100 incidents (England 42.1, the East of England 43.8). It issued 134 fixed penalty notices (87.0% of its actions; England 8.4%): 134 for fly-tipping itself. 43 fixed penalty notices were recorded as paid in the year.

No prosecutions were recorded. Among the 254 councils ranked on enforcement, Colchester had the 21st lowest rate of actions per 100 incidents and the 13th highest share of fixed penalty notices.

Of the 44 councils in the East of England ranked for 2024/25, Great Yarmouth had the highest rate (76.8 per 1,000) and West Suffolk the lowest (1.5). Great Yarmouth's count went from 1,153 in 2023/24 to 7,720 in 2024/25 while England's changed by +9%, a step that may reflect a change in how the council records fly-tipping. Tendring is 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.