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Littering fines draw in almost £100k across county

Elliot DeadyCambridgeshire
News imageElliot Deady/BBC Three people installing a bin on a lamp-post. The bin is made from an orange basketball hoop with a translucent plastic bag attached to it. All three volunteers are wearing high visibility jackets.Elliot Deady/BBC
Volunteers in Peterborough have paid for and installed their own bins to help curb littering

Littering fines have generated nearly £100,000 in revenue for councils across a county since the start of 2023, new figures have revealed.

Local authorities in Cambridgeshire have issued 889 fixed penalty notices for littering, according to Freedom of Information requests made by the BBC.

Most of them were issued by Cambridge City Council, which received about £83,000 from littering fines – 86% of the county's total.

Harry Machin, a volunteer litter picker in Peterborough, said other councils could learn from Cambridge.

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Cambridge City Council has consistently issued more fines than other authorities in Cambridgeshire, but the number of them has been falling.

The council issued 776 of the county's 889 fines – 374 in 2023, 271 in 2024, 82 in 2025, and 49 so far this year.

By contrast, Peterborough City Council has issued 45 fines since 2023.

The BBC asked the councils about fines for littering but not fly-tipping, which the authority previously said had more than doubled last year.

South Cambridgeshire, East Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and Fenland councils have handed out 33, 22, seven, and six littering fines respectively.

The fines have generated the following revenue for each council:

  • Cambridge City Council: £83,460
  • South Cambridgeshire District Council: £6,720
  • East Cambridgeshire District Council: £3,601
  • Peterborough City Council: £1,200
  • Fenland District Council: £1,000
  • Huntingdonshire District Council: £900
News imageElliot Deady/BBC A man wearing an orange high visibility jacket in front of a hedge. He is smiling straight at the camera and wearing glasses.Elliot Deady/BBC
Harry Machin is the founder of the Peterborough Litter Wombles group

Across the county, 35 people have been prosecuted for littering since 2023, including 19 in Cambridge.

The number of prosecutions in Peterborough rose from one in 2024 to seven in 2025, and the city council has brought four prosecutions so far this year.

"It's good to see action being taken," said Machin, founder of the Peterborough Litter Wombles group.

"I think [other councils] would be keen to learn from Cambridge's good practice."

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