Fly-tipping is a growing menace and Kirklees Council is looking at new ways to stop people illegally dumping their waste.

The council says it has a “zero tolerance” approach to fly-tipping yet only a fraction of offenders are caught and punished.

Between April 1 2024 and March 31 2025 there were 10,120 fly-tipping incidents reported to Kirklees Council but only 53 fixed penalty notices were issued and 21 people taken to court.

As public concern grows over fly-tipping hotspots around the district, the council is drawing up a fly-tipping strategy to tackle the issue.

Possible solutions will be discussed at a meeting of the council’s Environment and Climate Change Scrutiny Panel at Huddersfield Town Hall on Wednesday November 26.

The draft document says that each ward in Kirklees has at least one fly-tipping hotspot with Greenhead, Newsome and Dalton in Huddersfield, Crosland Moor & Netherton and Dewsbury West the worst affected.

The council says: “Fly-tipping has increased in Kirklees and we are projecting further increases.”

However, the council doesn’t believe CCTV at known hotspots and enforcement is the complete answer.

The council says it investigates all reported incidents of fly-tipping and evidence is needed to prosecute. Often the rubbish dumped doesn’t contain evidence of where it came from giving the council nothing to go on.

The council also says that many people believe fly-tipping will be cleared up quickly by the council at little or no cost and that dumping waste is “not criminal.”

The council has looked at how other councils get the message across and has suggested various methods including placing yellow police-style crime scene investigation tape around dumped waste with a slogan such as “illegally dumped rubbish under investigation.”

Other councils have seen a 73% reduction in fly-tipping in locations where tape has been used.

Another method is stencilling slogans on walls at dumping hotspots highlighting the cost of fly-tipping. This kind of action saw a 67% reduction in fly-tipping elsewhere.

Kirklees is currently working to reduce a fly-tipping clearance backlog, cutting it from 1,401 in September to 546. The response time has also been reduced from 12 weeks to four weeks.

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