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

Among the 267 councils in England that count all incidents, Welwyn Hatfield had the 51st highest rate of fly-tipping per resident in 2024/25. Of the 44 ranked councils in the East of England, it had the 9th highest rate. The count was almost unchanged on 2023/24 (3,037), against a rise of 9% in Defra's England total.

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.

Council land accounted for the most incidents in Welwyn Hatfield (1,641, 54%). 5% of incidents were on highways, against 33% across England. 24 were on private or residential land (0.8%; England 1.1%).

Compared with England, a larger share was on commercial or industrial land (1.0% against 0.3%). The council did not identify the land type for 27% of incidents.

The most common kind of waste was other household waste, in 1,501 incidents (50%; England 44%). Relative to England, Welwyn Hatfield had a larger share of other commercial waste (17.1% against 2.9%). Hazardous waste: 7 incidents involved asbestos, 5 incidents involved clinical waste and 10 incidents involved chemical drums, oil and fuel. Tyres were dumped in 21 incidents.

37% were a car boot load or less (England 53%). 53% were van loads (England 43%). 299 incidents were the size of a tipper lorry load or larger (9.9%; England 3.7%): 160 tipper lorry loads and 139 significant or multiple loads.

The council took 167 enforcement actions against fly-tipping in 2024/25, 5.5 for every 100 incidents (England 42.1, the East of England 43.8). It issued 105 fixed penalty notices (62.9% of its actions; England 8.4%): 73 for fly-tipping itself, 30 for littering alongside fly-tipping and 2 of other kinds. 65 fixed penalty notices were recorded as paid in the year.

The council told Defra that its fixed penalty for fly-tipping is £500. No prosecutions were recorded. Among the 254 councils ranked on enforcement, Welwyn Hatfield had the 35th lowest rate of actions per 100 incidents and the 16th highest share of fixed penalty notices.

The chart shows fly-tipping incidents per 1,000 residents in Welwyn Hatfield in each year from 2020/21 to 2024/25, with Defra's England total. The rate was above the England total's in every one of those 5 years. The series starts in 2020/21 because the council changed how it counts fly-tipping between 2019/20 and 2020/21, from counting only fly-tips reported by the public to counting all 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 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.