Nottingham residents could face £250 fixed penalty notices if they fail to make proper checks over who takes away their household waste, under a new enforcement decision approved by Nottingham City Council.
The council has approved the introduction of fixed penalty notices for offences under Section 34(2A) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which places a duty of care on occupiers of domestic properties in England. In practical terms, householders must take reasonable steps to ensure that waste produced at their property is only handed over to an authorised person, or to someone transporting it for authorised purposes.
The decision means that where household waste is later fly-tipped or otherwise disposed of unlawfully, the council may issue a fixed penalty notice to a householder if it finds they failed to meet that duty of care. The standard penalty will be £250, reduced to £200 if paid within 10 working days of the notice being served.
The council says the £250 penalty level had already been set through its fees and charges policy by Executive Board in February 2025 and confirmed again at the Executive Board meeting on 11 February 2026. The new delegated decision approves the use of the notices and the early payment reduction.
The change does not create a new legal duty for residents, but gives the council another enforcement option where the existing household waste duty of care is breached. At present, the council says its only enforcement route for these offences is prosecution, which can involve investigation work, preparing court files and legal attendance at court.
The council says fixed penalty notices will provide an alternative in appropriate cases and could reduce the burden on Community Protection and legal services.
The power to issue fixed penalty notices for this type of offence follows changes made by the Environmental Protection (Miscellaneous Amendments) (England and Wales) Regulations 2018, which amended the 1990 Act to allow councils to use fixed penalties for householder duty of care offences.
The council says each case will be assessed individually. The decision report states that fixed penalty notices can offer a more proportionate response to relatively low-level offences than prosecution through the courts, but prosecution will still be considered where offending is deliberate and serious.
For residents, the decision means there is a financial risk if waste is passed to an unauthorised person and later ends up being fly-tipped. The council’s report describes the measure as targeting occupiers of domestic properties who fail to meet their duty of care responsibility, enabling their waste to be fly-tipped or inappropriately disposed of. Residents using waste collectors are therefore expected to take reasonable steps to check that the person or company removing waste is authorised.
Nottingham City Council already issues fixed penalty notices for a range of environmental offences, including fly-tipping, littering and waste presentation offences, often referred to as bin offences. The council says fixed penalty notices are part of the tools it uses to address anti-social behaviour and environmental crime, allowing lower-level cases to be resolved without lengthy court proceedings.
The report says the decision has not been made with the intention of generating revenue. It states that the cost to the local authority of cleaning and clearing up after environmental crime is substantial, and that the level of the penalty is intended to discourage non-compliance while reflecting investigation and clearance costs.
The total cost of introducing the change is listed as £3,395.33, made up of £245.33 for new fixed penalty notice books and £3,150 for an upgrade to the council’s back office system. The spending has been approved through the council’s spend control process.
The council considered a number of alternatives before approving the change. One option was not to introduce the fixed penalty notices, but the report says this would leave all breaches of the household waste duty of care offence to be referred for prosecution through the courts. Another option was to set the penalty as high as £600, the maximum allowed under the legislation, but the council said this could cause unnecessary hardship and lead to more unpaid penalties. A minimum penalty of £150 was also considered, but was rejected because the council said it would not reflect the seriousness of the offence or the costs associated with investigation.
The legislation allows councils to set fixed penalties for this offence between £150 and £600. The council’s report compares Nottingham’s proposed level with other authorities, including Doncaster, where the penalty is £250 reduced to £200 for early payment, Wigan at £300 reduced to £120, Bolton at £600 reduced to £450, Cambridge at £400 reduced to £240, and Tower Hamlets at £600 reduced to £300.
The report also refers to a recent Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman report urging councils to take a measured approach to household waste offenders. Nottingham City Council says recommendations from that report will be embedded into its environmental crime enforcement work. These include having clear and accessible policies explaining householders’ duties, giving officers guidance on proportionate enforcement, recording reasons for penalty decisions, providing a clear complaints process for people to challenge fixed penalty notices, and maintaining oversight of any enforcement agents acting on the council’s behalf.
The decision has been classified as operational. The report says environmental crime affects the visual amenity of Nottingham and its neighbourhoods, impacts residents’ feelings of safety and wellbeing, and creates a substantial financial burden for the council in clearing waste.
