Residents Raise Fears of Corrupt Practices as Fines Soar

Hounslow issues nearly 8,000 fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping & other offences

Cllr Amy Croft tells the Overview and Scrutiny Committee that there is no financial incentive for enforcement officers to issue more fines

September 3, 2026

Almost 8,000 fixed penalty notices have been issued in the borough Hounslow in the last year for everything from littering and fly-tipping to graffiti and street trading offences.

However, some are concerned contractors are targeting minor infringements by ordinary people over real criminality that has the biggest impacts on the local environment and street scene. One councillor claimed residents had told her they believe “corrupt” enforcement officers are fabricating ‘fly-tips’ by taking cardboard out of commercial waste bins and placing it elsewhere in order to fine people.

Between July 2025 and June 2026, APOCA, the contractor working on behalf of Hounslow Council, handed out 7,912 on-the-spot fines, also called fixed penalty notices (FPNs).

Fly-tipping was by far the most prevalent offence for which an FPN was issued to residents, with 3,324 fines handed out. Hounslow issues a flat £1,000 fine for fly-tipping – even if it’s something as small as an envelope – meaning the council was able to raise a staggering £3.32 million pounds from fly-tipping infringements alone.

On average between 300 and 400 FPNs are issued each month in Hounslow. Typically, around 45 to 65 fines are cancelled every month.

In the last year, 728 fines were cancelled with a huge majority of those cancelled on appeal. A further 85 fines were cancelled due to either officer error, the council making a case-by-case decision, or the offender being under 18.

FPN fine rates have drastically increased in Hounslow since 2024. In 2024, those caught ‘fly-tipping’ would pay a £450 fine, reduced to £250 if paid early – this has since been increased to a flat £1,000 fine without an early discount. Feltham mum and NHS mental health nurse Loretta Alvarez was among those to receive one of these hefty penalties when she placed a cardboard envelope on a pile of other cardboard next to her overflowing communal bins.

Littering would previously earn you a £120 fine – reduced to £80 if paid early – up until April 2025. Offenders are now slapped with a £500 fine, reduced to £250 if paid early – however it is unclear how the council or its contractor differentiates between fly-tipping and litter given Ms Alvarez’s £1,000 fine for a single item of cardboard.

During an Overview and Scrutiny Committee hearing this Tuesday, (1 September), Cllr Amy Croft, Cabinet Member for Infrastructure, Enforcement and Recycling, said: “The difference between littering and fly-tipping in general terms is that littering relates to anything that is kind of thinking about it as personal waste so cigarette butts, chewing gum, crisp packets… whereas fly-tipping is the more deliberate leaving of kind of larger items.”

Cllr Croft said that instances of people being fined for having a full bin which their rubbish has fallen out of, for those like Ms Alvarez, “was not the aim”. Officers have now been told not to target bin or recycling areas. Despite this apparent shift in focus, the council has refused to cancel Ms Alvarez’s fine despite a petition signed by almost 4,000 people.

Fly-tipping remains an environmental, financial and community issue in Hounslow with 10,529 reports of fly-tipping already recorded for 2026. Despite remaining a challenge, Cllr Croft asserted that Hounslow is outperforming the rest of London in fly-tipping because incidents are increasing at a slower rate.

She said: “Whilst we haven’t necessarily seen a reduction in fly-tipping, we have seen a kind of flattening of the curve so whilst the rest of London has gone up substantially, our fly tipping rates have increased by about 2% whereas comparable boroughs have gone up by about 10 to 15%.”

Cllr Joanna Biddolph, who represents Chiswick Gunnersbury, raised concerns that the department was focused on revenue raising rather than tackling root causes of fly-tipping. Cllr Croft assured Cllr Biddolph “with the utmost sincerity… that the aim of this is not revenue raising”.

Cllr Biddolph explained that some residents believed APCOA officers were actively manipulating evidence. She told the committee: “An awful lot of people who’ve been fined believe that there is a corrupt or more than one corrupt APCOA officer removing the cardboard (from commercial waste bins), photographing it in a different place for whatever their KPIs are.”

Councillor Croft responded that they would look into it but reiterated that officers have absolutely no financial incentive to do so.

APCOA did not respond to a request for a comment.

Philip James Lynch - Local Democracy Reporter