Bath named worst UK city for fly-tipping and littering

Bath is the worst UK city for fly-tipping and littering, according to analysis of FixMyStreet.com reports by The Solar Centre.

Fix My Street is a website that lets residents report incidents of waste to local authorities, and has seen over 1.5 million reports submitted since it was set up in 2007. The Solar Centre ranked 52 cities a score out of 10, for the number of reports for fly-tipping incidents by local authority, with 10 being the lowest and 0 being the highest.

The results may not come as a surprise to local residents after Bath and North East Somerset council recently employed litter enforcement officers to tackle the problem and clean-up the streets.

London (3.26), Southampton (3.66), Peterborough (4.27) and Cardiff (4.27) are also named in the top 5 worst places for littering in the UK.

When it comes to fly-tipping, cities in Scotland and Northern Ireland have the lowest rates, with Belfast seeing the least reports. Worcester (9.94) is the only city to represent England in the top five coming in at a respective joint-second place with Perth (9.94).

Bath (0), Southampton (0.02) and Peterborough (0.12) all feature in the bottom five again for the worst fly-tipping cities in the UK.

A Bath and North East Somerset Council spokesperson told Environment Journal: ‘We simply do not recognise this data analysis as an accurate reflection of litter and fly-tipping in Bath and North East Somerset compared to other areas.

‘We introduced Fix My Street as a means to help residents and visitors report incidents such as litter and fly-tipping, however, other local authorities have different ways of collecting similar information and managing complaints. It means these figures are not properly representative.’

‘We take littering and fly tipping very seriously and like our residents we do not want to see Bath and North East Somerset blighted by such actions. We have recently introduced enforcement rangers to educate and fine persistent offenders and we continue to invest in street cleansing services which keep Bath and outlying towns free of litter.

Brian Davenport, Director of The Solar Centre, said: ‘It’s really positive to see Northern Ireland leading the way for both littering and fly-tipping, particularly with the work going on to clean up the region which saw an impressive 12% of transects become litter-free in 2017/18.

‘While Bath features at the bottom of both lists, it’s encouraging to see the area introduce litter-enforcement officers to crack-down on offenders and tackle its problem.

‘Hopefully, with the new fly-tipping penalties introduced in January, it should encourage UK householders to dispose of their waste responsibly, otherwise they could be faced with fines of up to £400.’