Lewisham Council spent more than £1 million clearing up fly-tipping in the past year, and dealt with 8,330 reported cases.

The whopping total of £1,138,275.94 was the highest amount spent by councils in SE London fin 2017-18, with £912,000 of this spent on vehicles and mobile staff to clear the litter.

A Lewisham Council spokesperson said: “The cost of clearing up fly-tipping is huge and has put immense pressure on our finances and services.

"Fly-tipping is illegal and we will continue to take tough action against anyone who dumps rubbish in our borough.

"We encourage residents to report illegally dumped waste on our streets, pavements and open spaces in Lewisham.” 

The information, obtained in a Freedom of Information request, showed the second worst hit area was Bromley, where there were 5,016 cases of fly-tipping in the same period.

Although Bromley Council was not able to provide an exact figure for the amount spent on fly-tipping, it estimated the total spent over 12 months was £199,000.

Despite seeing the third highest number of reports of fly-tipping, Greenwich council spent the most money on disposing of waste.

It shelled out £762,842 on cases that were “reported and proactive” after 4,926 incidents were notified in the borough.

Bexley came out as the cleanest borough with 3,119 cases reported to the council – although only 2,085 of these were considered cases to be dealt with.

The council estimates that “circa 73k” was spent picking up and disposing of the litter illegally dumped in the borough.

In north Kent, Dartford recorded 2,560 cases of fly-tipping, forking out £93,265 to clean up the messes.