Fly-tipping drives farmers to build “forts” on their properties

The most recent government statistics show that 1.08 million fly-tipping incidents in England required local governments to clean up after them in 2022–2023. The highest illicit tips required £13.2 million to clear, yet only £785,000 in court fines were collected—a 17% decrease. The numbers, which are limited to public property, were unveiled on Wednesday and do not include a valuation of all fly-tipping expenses. However, private landowners claim they are being forced to convert their farms into “medieval forts” due to the extent of fly-tipping in the countryside.

Fly-tipping is “going unrecorded on a mass scale” on private land and fields, according to the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), and trash offenders are being deterred by security fencing and concrete blocks. Colin Rayner, a farmer with 2,000 acres of agricultural land spanning south Buckinghamshire and east Berkshire, claimed that rubbish is thrown on his property nearly every weekend. We even had an incidence when a truck pulled onto a field where we were combining, opened its rear, tipped out a load of trash, and then drove away. He remarked, “They really are that brash.

The entire yearly clean-up expenditures, Mr. Rayner continued, were “unimaginable – it affects the viability of the business”. These days, he uses security fences and five-ton concrete blocks to block field gates and prevent bigger tipping truck lorries from dumping rubbish on his property. Even during the pandemic’s peak fly-tipping, security guards were on duty. “Any farm in this area is doing the same thing, even though it shouldn’t be this way. Their fields were previously ungated, but they are now beginning to do so,” he continued. According to a recent survey conducted by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), fly-tipping of tons of commercial and domestic garbage was expected to have an impact on two-thirds of farmers and landowners.