Droitwich & Evesham Labour Party marked the publication of the Government’s ambitious crackdown on fly-tipping by urging Wychavon District Council to use their new powers to the full to end the scourge of increasing ‘waste crime’.
Freedom of Information requests to Wychavon reveal that reports of cases of fly-tipping on public land soared to over 1300 in 2024 and show no signs of diminishing, with increasing reports of such tipping on private land too. Yet amazingly, despite often prompt removal, no prosecutions by the Council occurred in 2024 or 2025 and the number of fines issued was in small single figures each year!
The Labour Government’s new Waste Crime Action Plan, just published, needs to bring about a new partnership between Government, the Environment Agency and local authorities like Wychavon to tackle this problem far more vigorously. New police-like powers and more funds for Environment Agency staff to intervene earlier and disrupt the finances of criminal gangs are combined with plans for Local Councils to offer rebates on Landfill Tax to disincentivise fly tipping, while illegal waste operators will be publicly named and shamed. Wychavon Council can embrace this plan and put energy and resources into issuing more fines and convicting culprits.
Meanwhile, on Sunday March 22nd Evesham Labour Party members contributed to the successful annual Big Evesham Spring Clean organised by Anti-Litter Evesham as part of the national Keep Britain Tidy campaign. Such energetic voluntary action again contrasts with the inaction of many local councils who fail to issue fixed penalty notices or fines despite the increasingly widespread blight of our streets and countryside by those who drop litter. Nationally more than 70 councils failed to issue a single fine for littering last year while over three-quarters of the fines that were issued were by Labour controlled councils. Clean Up Britain and local campaigners are rightly urging the Government to double the maximum fine to £1,000 but this will only have an impact if councils like Wychavon use the powers they already have more aggressively.
Mary Tasker, a Wychavon Labour Councillor and herself an active anti-litter campaigner, said ‘Government action on both fly-tipping, and littering more generally, is very welcome but success will only come from local action and a concerted campaign of education, combined with rigorous enforcement of new and existing powers.’