Just 3.6% of fly-tipping and pollution complaints lead to penalties

The vast majority of complaints to a hotline designed for the public to report offences such as fly-tipping and pollution did not result in any sanction, it has been revealed.

Data from a freedom of information request submitted by the Liberal Democrats shows just 3.6% of complaints about pollution, fly-tipping, oil spills, fish kills and other environmental damage last year resulted in penalties for those responsible.

Wera Hobhouse, the Lib Dem spokeswoman for the climate emergency and the environment, said the figures showed that the environmental protection system fell “shockingly short of where it needs to be”.

The hotline is run by the Environment Agency, the non-departmental government body with responsibility for protecting the environment in England, and aims to provide the public with a way to complain about incidents they see.

Related: Exclusive: water firms discharged raw sewage into England's rivers 200,000 times in 2019

The Lib Dems say it is concerning that despite people’s concerns about the state of the environment, more than 95% of the incidents logged by the Environment Agency in 2019 did not result in any sanction.

The 76,727 complaints in 2019 to the hotline ranged from river pollution to fish kills, flooding, fly-tipping, damage to nature, abstraction from rivers, littering and illegal waste sites.

The measures taken in the 3.6% of cases (2,789 instances) that were resolved were mostly advice and guidance (given in 1,597 cases) and warning letters (1,074 cases). In only one case was a fixed penalty issued.

Hobhouse said: “People around the world are rightly worried about the climate emergency. We know that the destruction of natural environments and collapsing biodiversity significantly contribute to the climate crisis. The UK should be leading the way in urgent climate action.

“The government must hold individuals who commit environmental crimes to account. Failure to do so damages our natural environment and impacts [on] future generations. The government must urgently work to get this right. We only have one planet and we all depend on it.”

The party said it was calling for legally binding targets to improve the quality of water, air, soil and biodiversity. “Unless we protect the UK’s natural habitats – with legislation – we run the risk of losing them forever,” said Hobhouse.

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “In the last year alone we handled 76,777 environmental incidents across the country – one every seven minutes – ranging from floods to oil spills and fish kills. All incidents are taken extremely seriously and every single report is investigated by our dedicated officers.

“We will always seek to hold to account those responsible for serious environmental harm. In 2018-19 we prosecuted 77 counts of waste crime, resulting in eight prison sentences and nearly £450,000 of fines, and won five successful prosecutions against water companies, with total fines of over £2m.”