Havering has seen a 15 per cent drop in the number of fly-tipping incidents taking place in the borough since last year.

According to data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) there were 3,959 incidents of fly-tipping from 2018/19 which is a slight decrease from the previous year when there were 4,655 fly-tipping incidents over the 12 months from March 2017 to March 2018.

The most common type of waste dumped in Havering was household waste which accounted for 1,522 incidents.

There were also five incidents of animal carcasses being dumped, 14 asbestos incidents and 10 incidents of chemical drums, oil and fuel waste being abandoned.

Barry Francis, director of neighbourhoods, said: "We won't tolerate the illegal dumping of waste and these figures reflect our hard work to bring those responsible to justice.

"Havering remains in the top nine of London boroughs carrying out enforcement action and as a result, has one of the lowest volumes of fly-tipping, ranked 22nd out all 32 London boroughs.

"In the last year we have carried out over 6,000 enforcement actions, including tackling unlicensed waste carriers with on-the-spot fines and issuing warnings to individuals and companies after tracing the dumped rubbish back to them."

In May three serial fly-tippers were ordered to pay back more than £230,000 after they were caught on CCTV dumping waste in Barking and Essex, and at a former landfill site in Rainham.

Havering issued a Community Protection Warning (CPW) after a privately-owned area of land in Nelson Road, Rainham repeatedly saw rubbish being dumped near resident's homes.

Fly-tippers were charged a total of £1,230 in fines from March 2018 to 2019.

Other council measures to tackle fly-tipping includes launching 3,621 investigations, sending out 2,022 warning letters and issuing 160 penalty notices.

Mr Francis added: "We have also launched the Love Havering app making it easier and quicker for residents to report fly-tipping and we continue to urge them to support us in reporting fly-tipping and also disposing of their waste legally and responsibly."

Visit havering.gov.uk/lovehavering to report fly-tipping via the council's app.