Transparency data: Locations of high priority waste sites in England

The Environment Agency is committed to transparency in its work. Providing open information about the risks we see to the environment helps elected officials, local communities, businesses and the voluntary sector understand the issues, scrutinise our decisions and take action themselves.

Illegal and irregular waste activities harm communities, damage the environment, and undermine legitimate businesses.

We are stepping up our action on waste crime and will act early to address illegal activity before it becomes established. As part of this commitment, we are publishing this watchlist of sites that are causing concerns within local communities – enabling you to see where we are working now. This picture will continuously evolve as we review activities, and we commit to updating the watchlist every month.

The Environment Agency is restricted in the level of detail it can publish, as we cannot prejudice ongoing enquiries and any associated enforcement action. Whether any activity is illegal is ultimately a matter for the courts to decide, and not the Environment Agency. However, we recognise the need to support communities in accessing information which might affect them. We will share more details on individual sites as they become available – with a view to release any site-specific information, which is appropriate to share publicly, on the Environment Agency waste hub by the end of September 2026.

Accurate local information to effectively tackle waste crime is critical in protecting people and the environment from any potential risks.

If you have any information about any of the sites included in our watchlist, or suspect illegal waste activity anywhere, please report fly-tipping, large-scale dumping or other waste crimes.

5. Sites removed from the high priority sites list