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

New Forest is not ranked against other councils because it counts only fly-tips reported by the public, not all incidents. The count was up 22% on 2023/24 (1,118).

Footpaths and bridleways accounted for the most incidents in New Forest (1,106, 81%). 9% of incidents were on highways, against 33% across England.

The most common kind of waste was other household waste, in 952 incidents (70%; England 44%). Relative to England, New Forest had a larger share of tyres (3.7% against 1.1%), green waste (5.7% against 2.9%) and vehicle parts (1.5% against 0.9%). Hazardous waste: 5 incidents involved asbestos and 4 incidents involved clinical waste.

25% were a car boot load or less (England 53%). 75% were van loads (England 43%). 1 incident was the size of a tipper lorry load or larger (0.1%; England 3.7%): 1 tipper lorry load and no significant or multiple loads.

The council took 2,822 enforcement actions against fly-tipping in 2024/25. The most common action was investigations (1,646, 58% of all actions; England 68%). It issued 852 fixed penalty notices (30.2% of its actions; England 8.4%): 332 for fly-tipping itself, 475 to householders who passed waste to an unlicensed carrier (household duty of care), 20 for littering alongside fly-tipping and 25 of other kinds.

390 fixed penalty notices were recorded as paid in the year. The council told Defra that its fixed penalty for fly-tipping is £750, reduced to £300 for early payment. No prosecutions were recorded.

The chart shows fly-tipping incidents per 1,000 residents in New Forest in each year from 2020/21 to 2024/25. In every year shown the council counted only fly-tips reported by the public, so the years compare with each other but not with England. The series starts in 2020/21 because the council changed how it counts fly-tipping between 2019/20 and 2020/21, from counting all incidents to counting only fly-tips reported by the public.

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 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.