Fly-tippers are targeting a plot of council-owned land in Croydon with such frequency that residents say offenders are acting with impunity. It comes despite the council’s reintroduction of enforcement officers into the borough.
“They just know they can get away with it,” said one woman who lives opposite a row of garages on Dunsfold Way in New Addington, where a major fly-tip has left piles of dumped industrial and household waste near number 94.
“I see people coming day and night to that spot,” she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS). “They park up, dump their stuff, and speed off.”
Another resident, passing the site, said: “Look at it, the gates are wide open and the garages are full of who knows what. There are a lot of kids around here, someone could get hurt playing around it.”
During a visit to the site, the LDRS saw evidence of dumped household and commercial waste throughout. The gates to the site were also left open, and a number of garages appeared to have been broken into and filled with rubbish.
The garages are part of Croydon Council’s stock of 2,577. According to the council, 1,110 of their garages are currently empty, having previously been lined up for redevelopment under the now-abandoned Brick by Brick scheme.
The incident is just the latest in a borough long plagued by fly-tipping. Croydon has previously been labelled the “fly-tipping capital of England”.
The council says fly-tippers cost local taxpayers more than £1 million in 2024 alone. In response, it has raised fixed penalty notices from £400 to £1,000 and launched a new community compliance team to recoup costs from offenders.
Councillor Rowenna Davis, Labour’s candidate for Croydon Mayor, called the Dunsfold Way site “shocking and dangerous”. She said the land could be better used for family homes, play areas or parking.
“This is council land, so it’s Mayor Jason Perry’s mess,” she said. “I’m going to fight to get it cleaned up, New Addington deserves better.”
Credit: Harrison Galliven
On a local Nextdoor thread about the fly-tip, Alan Malarkey added: “This level of criminality is well beyond the Love Clean Streets app to solve. An obdurate mayor unable to see that which is plainly in view cannot expect to be trusted to get other decisions right.”
Mayor Jason Perry called fly-tipping a “selfish crime” and urged residents to report it. “We will continue prosecuting where we have the evidence to do so,” he said.
The council recently reintroduced enforcement officers into the borough after the dedicated neighbourhood safety team was cut in 2022. This means four officers are now responsible for cracking down on fly-tipping in a borough that’s home to nearly 400,000 people.
While some have welcomed the enforcement, others feel fly-tippers from across London and the South East choose Croydon to dump waste because the area is large and difficult to cover. The council has secured only four successful prosecutions for fly-tipping across the borough since Conservative Mayor Perry took office in 2022.
Veolia, with which the council recently renewed its waste contract, claims to clear an average of 190 fly-tips daily, and recently removed 180 tonnes of dumped waste in a single month through a new night-time service.
Croydon Council says the Dunsfold Way fly-tip is being treated as a priority, with plans to secure the site’s gates to prevent more dumping. Investigations are under way to identify and prosecute those responsible.
A council spokesperson added: “Environmental crimes like fly-tipping have a real negative impact on local communities. They make areas unclean, make them feel unsafe and can encourage other forms of antisocial behaviour.
“Fly-tipping in Croydon can be reported to the council through Love Clean Streets. Through the waste and street cleansing contract with Veolia, 95 per cent of all reported fly-tips are cleared within 24 hours.”
