Earl Spencer has called on politicians to confront organised fly-tipping gangs after years of industrial-scale waste dumping forced his family to sell farmland in Northamptonshire that they had worked since 1893.
Writing in the Daily Mail, Spencer said the 310 acres at Dallington were not abandoned because of financial pressure but because criminals had made them ungovernable. “The final straw came last year when the 250-year-old farmhouse on the land was set on fire by criminals and had to be demolished,” he wrote.
The dumping went far beyond a stray fridge or a bag of household rubbish. Spencer described lorry-loads of construction waste tipped in the dead of night, asbestos sheeting left rotting in a hedgerow and, on one occasion, 60 burnt-out cars stacked on what had been good pasture. Three years ago staff at his Althorp estate removed half a ton of plastic bags thrown over a wall containing, Spencer said, rotten meat and putrefying human waste from a local restaurant.
Organised crime, not opportunists
Spencer said the scale of the problem reflected the nature of those responsible. “The people doing this aren’t opportunists chucking an old sofa off the back of a van. They are organised,” he wrote. A House of Lords inquiry heard evidence last year that large-scale fly-tipping is now run by the same criminal networks involved in money laundering, drug dealing and modern slavery.
When his team handed police filmed evidence of one offence on Althorp land, the accused received a £1,000 fine and told officers it would not stop them.
Under current law, waste dumped at the roadside is the local council’s responsibility. Waste tipped a few feet further on, through a farm gate, becomes the farmer’s problem: his to clear at his own cost, and his legal liability if he does not. Spencer said Althorp runs six full-time skips dealing with the problem and that a single hazardous load can cost tens of thousands of pounds to remove. One load cost him £40,000.
A survey by the Country Land and Business Association found nearly three-quarters of farmers were hit every year, some several times a month, at roughly £1,000 per incident. In law, a farmer can recover costs only after the person responsible has been convicted, making that right almost worthless in practice.
One in 900 cases reaches court
Official figures underline how rarely that happens. Councils in England recorded 1.26 million fly-tipping incidents last year, 9 per cent more than the year before, yet only 1,377 of those led to a prosecution: fewer than one in 900. Councils seized 139 vehicles across the whole of England. Fines fell while dumping rose, and the average penalty was £539.
Spencer pointed to Hoads Wood in Kent, an ancient bluebell wood and site of special scientific interest, as an illustration of what inadequate enforcement produces. Dumping there began in 2020 and was reported by the public. By the time the Environment Agency closed the site in 2024, some 30,000 tons had been tipped, up to 25 feet deep in places. Clearing it is estimated to cost £10 million. Kent Wildlife Trust expects the damage to still be visible in 100 years. Three people were arrested last February. Nobody has been prosecuted.
Last October the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee wrote to the Environment Secretary describing serious waste crime as critically under-prioritised and calling for an independent review. Its chairman said she feared the system was broken.
Land now earmarked for 1,800 homes
The Dallington farmland has been sold to developers and will become 1,800 new houses, a secondary school and two primary schools, with funding directed toward local roads and healthcare. Spencer acknowledged his family was not left without options. “I cannot pretend the outcome was a hardship. We had land worth selling and buyers who very much wanted it,” he wrote.
He said most affected farmers have no such exit. “Most of the people this happens to have no developer at the end of the story, just the next gate and the next lorry and no way of knowing which morning it will be theirs.”
The Government has said it will look at indemnifying landowners for clean-up costs and has announced fines of up to £5,000 and penalty points for fly-tipping. Spencer said the measures were not unreasonable but warned that a penalty deters only those who expect to be caught. Spencer donated his fee for the article to the charity Keep Britain Tidy.
