We take fly-tipping seriously in Barnsley and we are taking proactive steps to tackle environmental crime that blight our borough.

Statistics from DEFRA have shown that fly-tipping offences have shown a consistent decrease over the last three years after peaking during the pandemic and we remain committed to seeing that trend continue.

This includes our proactive patrol officers, with three alone accounting for 20% of fly-tipping reports in Q3 last year, alongside ongoing work with Microsoft to make reporting fly-tipping easier.

During this same time period, 98.7% of fly-tipping cases were cleared within the five-day service level agreement, not including cases where we had to bring in specialist support 

We are also collaborating with our volunteers to develop our Litter and Environmental Crime strategy, which will include our environmental enforcement plan and will be finalised in the coming months.

As well as proactive patrol officers and developing our strategy, efforts have been made by volunteers, elected councillors and members of the public to identify areas of fly-tipping.

We will prosecute anyone found to be causing environmental crime and fly-tipping in the borough, as seen with recent convictions and fines being handed out for duty of care offences relating to rogue waste carriers and for fly-tipping in Carlton and Royston.

Earlier this year we seized and crushed a van after the vehicle’s owner was caught fly-tipping a large amount of household waste and we have also conducted joint action with our joining forces partners during operation Duxford and during community days in Hoyland.

Cllr James Higginbottom, Cabinet Spokesperson for Environment and Highways said: “We have zero tolerance for environmental crimes and those who blight our local areas and communities with fly-tipping.

“Over the course of the year we have taken a number of steps to combat this problem and we continue to work to make the process of reporting fly-tipping easier for our residents.

“I’d like to thank our patrol officers, volunteers, fellow councillors and residents for their engagement with us on this matter and the teams who remove the fly-tipped waste from our streets.

“With your help we can continue to tackle environmental crime and make Barnsley a cleaner, greener place for us all.”