Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking with relevant local stakeholders to tackle fly tipping near motorways in (a) the UK and (b) Leicestershire.

We commissioned WRAP to deliver a pilot fly-tipping intervention grant to help local authorities trial new approaches to tackle fly-tipping at hotspots. This includes a project trialling the use of AI enabled CCTV in conjunction with automatic number plate recognition to tackle fly-tipping at motorway laybys. If successful, this intervention could be replicated by others.

We understand that enforcement plays a key role in tackling fly-tipping. In a new trial, National Highways will be collecting evidence of littering and fly-tipping across the Strategic Road Network and will be working with relevant local authorities to support prosecution.

National Highways also supports local authorities in Leicestershire, as with other counties, to reduce the cost of removing waste on the trunk roads they are responsible for by providing opportunities for them to share their upcoming traffic management and road closures.