Fly-tippers face £5,000 fines in crackdown

Fly-tippers face £5,000 fines after councillors approved increasing the penalty by 400%.

Wychavon District Council in Worcestershire said it hoped the hefty penalty would act as a "serious deterrent" to those dumping waste in the area.

The council is one of the first in the country to increase fines, after the government gave local authorities more control over penalties.

Councillor Beverley Hardman, executive board member for the environment, said people "caught damaging our communities and countryside" could "expect tougher consequences".

Fly-tipping has long been a serious problem across the largely rural district, which includes the towns of Evesham, Pershore, Droitwich Spa and Broadway.

Under new laws, councils have been given the option to increase fines with penalties scaled to reflect the severity of the offence.

As well as increasing fines for fly-tipping from £1,000 to £5,000, Wychavon District Council has also increased the fine for street littering to the maximum £750, up from £500.

The measures are expected to be approved at a full council meeting on 30 September, with the most serious cases still prosecuted through the courts.

Evesham-based anti-litter campaigner Laura Van Toller described the issue as a "blight" on the town.

"It's awful," she said. "But the council has got to catch them [the fly-tippers] in the first place - a lot of the time we report stuff and it doesn't get followed through."

Councillors believe most of the culprits are unlicensed workers who collect waste from homes before dumping it in the district's maze of country lanes.

Under the legislation both the person fly-tipping and the householder they collected waste from are liable to be fined or face further prosecution.

In the 12-month period to the end of March 2026 there were 1,439 reported fly-tipping incidents in Wychavon, though council bosses said the figure included some duplicate reports.

That number included 47 incidents of dumped car tyres, 42 cases of discarded vehicle parts and 66 white goods being dumped.

Wychavon District Council leader Richard Morris said illegal dumping placed "financial burdens on council taxpayers while blighting our beautiful district".

"Increasing these penalties is another step in ensuring those responsible face the consequences of their actions - rather than leaving others to pick up the cost," he added.

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