Fly-tipping stats show things are improving in Portsmouth - while Southampton faces almost 10,000 incidents in 12 months

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have found that councils across England and Wales have dealt with 1.09m fly-tipping incidents in 2021/22.

Portsmouth saw the third least amount of incidents across the county with 525 in total, of these 395 were on city council land and 111 were found on highways. By contrast, Southampton saw the most fly-tipping action in Hampshire, with 9999 incidents.

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Portsmouth City Council assistant director Colette Hill said it is ‘extremely positive’ that incidents across Portsmouth have decreased compared to the previous year.

Colette said: ‘This ties in with fly tip tonnages continuing to reduce – an average of 12.51 tonnes per month for 2021/22 and 13.98 tonnes per month in 2020/21. The council is keen to reduce this further and the community warden and environmental enforcement teams continue to investigate all reported fly tips.

‘Re-deployable CCTV has also been utilised around hot spots and these complement the comprehensive CCTV in the city. We have also carried out some door-knocking exercises in areas where we get more items fly tipped.’

Gosport saw 398 misdeeds with 162 found on highways and 118 found on council land, 43 on private residences and 29 on green spaces.

Leader of Gosport Borough Council, Cllr Peter Chegwyn, said: ‘It’s good news that reported fly-tipping is down but there’s still too much of it about. As council leader I’m determined to clean-up Gosport and crackdown on those who dump their rubbish on public ground.

‘Our new amenity skips scheme helped people get rid of over 90 tonnes of rubbish in just nine weeks. The skips are re-starting in a couple of weeks time after a winter break and I hope this along with other action will help reduce fly-tipping even further.’

Elsewhere in Hampshire, Fareham saw the least amount of fly-tipping across Hampshire with 360 incidents, 196 of which were on council-owned land, 130 on highways and 32 on green spaces.

Waste was dumped 1732 times in the Winchester district, of these 1,414 were on highways and 180 on footpaths and bridleways.

The vast majority of fly-tipping in Havant was also done on highways making up 962 incidents out of 1,147 in total.