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

Gravesham is not ranked against other councils because it changed how it counts fly-tipping during the year.

Highways accounted for the most incidents in Gravesham: 862, or 33% (England 33%). 81 were on private or residential land (3.1%; England 1.1%). Compared with England, a larger share was on agricultural land (1.5% against 0.3%) and back alleyways (17.6% against 9.0%).

The most common kind of waste was other household waste, in 922 incidents (36%; England 44%). Relative to England, Gravesham had a larger share of animal carcasses (1.4% against 0.3%), chemical drums, oil and fuel (1.3% against 0.5%) and black bags (household) (32.9% against 17.2%). Hazardous waste: 6 incidents involved asbestos, 2 incidents involved clinical waste and 33 incidents involved chemical drums, oil and fuel. Tyres were dumped in 35 incidents.

56% were a car boot load or less (England 53%). 36% were van loads (England 43%). 212 incidents were the size of a tipper lorry load or larger (8.2%; England 3.7%): 41 tipper lorry loads and 171 significant or multiple loads.

The council took 1,441 enforcement actions against fly-tipping in 2024/25. The most common action was investigations (1,160, 80% of all actions; England 68%). It issued 83 fixed penalty notices (5.8% of its actions; England 8.4%): 37 for fly-tipping itself, 19 to householders who passed waste to an unlicensed carrier (household duty of care), 25 for littering alongside fly-tipping and 2 of other kinds.

47 fixed penalty notices were recorded as paid in the year. There were 8 prosecutions, and courts issued 7 fines totalling £11,828 and 1 community sentence was given.

Of the 57 councils in the South East ranked for 2024/25, Southampton had the highest rate (47.1 per 1,000) and Vale of White Horse the lowest (2.9). Brighton and Hove, Crawley, Epsom and Ewell, Fareham, Gravesham, New Forest and Tunbridge Wells 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.