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

Among the 267 councils in England that count all incidents, Cornwall had the 71st lowest rate of fly-tipping per resident in 2024/25. Of the 24 ranked councils in the South West, it had the 8th lowest rate. The count was up 27% on 2023/24 (3,101), against a rise of 9% in Defra's England total.

The region and England columns add up the 25 councils in the South West 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 Cornwall: 2,879, or 73% (England 33%). Compared with England, a larger share was on watercourses and banks (0.6% against 0.2%).

The most common kind of waste was other household waste, in 1,530 incidents (39%; England 44%). Relative to England, Cornwall had a larger share of tyres (7.9% against 1.1%), other electrical items (4.7% against 1.7%) and vehicle parts (2.3% against 0.9%). Hazardous waste: 18 incidents involved asbestos, 4 incidents involved clinical waste and 30 incidents involved chemical drums, oil and fuel.

48% were a car boot load or less (England 53%). 48% were van loads (England 43%). 129 incidents were the size of a tipper lorry load or larger (3.3%; England 3.7%): 80 tipper lorry loads and 49 significant or multiple loads.

The council took 1,456 enforcement actions against fly-tipping in 2024/25, 37.0 for every 100 incidents (England 42.1, the South West 22.9). The most common action was investigations (1,118, 77% of all actions; England 68%). It issued 21 fixed penalty notices (1.4% of its actions; England 8.4%): 4 for fly-tipping itself, 1 to householders who passed waste to an unlicensed carrier (household duty of care), 6 for littering alongside fly-tipping and 10 of other kinds.

10 fixed penalty notices were recorded as paid in the year. There were 3 prosecutions, and courts issued 3 fines totalling £3,160. Among the 254 councils ranked on enforcement, Cornwall had the 126th lowest rate of actions per 100 incidents and the 67th lowest share of fixed penalty notices.

The chart shows fly-tipping incidents per 1,000 residents in Cornwall in each year from 2019/20 to 2024/25, with Defra's England total. The rate was below the England total's in every one of those 6 years. 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 24 councils in the South West ranked for 2024/25, Bristol had the highest rate (20.8 per 1,000) and East Devon the lowest (2.5). Exeter, Isles of Scilly and Wiltshire 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.