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

Islington is not ranked against other councils because it counts only fly-tips reported by the public, not all incidents. No change on the year is given: the count went from 1,347 in 2023/24 to 3,330 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.

Highways accounted for the most incidents in Islington: 2,835, or 85% (England 33%). Compared with England, a larger share was on commercial or industrial land (1.3% against 0.3%).

The most common kind of waste was other household waste, in 1,554 incidents (47%; England 44%). Relative to England, Islington had a larger share of vehicle parts (1.8% against 0.9%), other commercial waste (5.4% against 2.9%) and chemical drums, oil and fuel (1.0% against 0.5%). Hazardous waste: 1 incident involved asbestos, 10 incidents involved clinical waste and 33 incidents involved chemical drums, oil and fuel.

Tyres were dumped in 30 incidents. The waste type was not identified for 16% of incidents.

53% were a car boot load or less (England 53%). 47% were van loads (England 43%). 2 incidents were the size of a tipper lorry load or larger (0.1%; England 3.7%): 2 tipper lorry loads and no significant or multiple loads.

The council took 4,098 enforcement actions against fly-tipping in 2024/25. The most common action was warning letters (1,949, 48% of all actions; England 13%). It issued 772 fixed penalty notices (18.8% of its actions; England 8.4%): 271 for fly-tipping itself, 64 for littering alongside fly-tipping and 437 of other kinds.

859 fixed penalty notices were recorded as paid in the year. No prosecutions were recorded.

Of the 25 councils in London ranked for 2024/25, Camden had the highest rate (166.9 per 1,000) and Kingston upon Thames the lowest (13.8). Ealing, Enfield, Islington, Lambeth, Newham, Redbridge, Waltham Forest and Wandsworth 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.