The annual cost of fly-tipping on Waltham Forest taxpayers is ‘unknown’ according to the council.

A Freedom of Information Act request has revealed the top three rubbish dumping hotspots in the borough, but could not establish the burden of this on the community purse.

Waltham Forest council currently pays £7m per year to Urbaser Ltd which carries out rubbish collections, grounds maintenance and general street cleaning.

However, there is no breakdown of figures for the cost of extra collections due to fly-tipping.

Between January 2013 and January 2015 the most call outs for dumped rubbish were to Folly Lane and Lockwood Way in Walthamstow, and Staffa Road in Leyton.

The FOI submitted by The Guardian also asked how many people have been prosecuted for the offence of fly-tipping over the same 24 month period.

But the authority only holds ‘part’ of the information requested as records have “not been completed”.

The reason given for this was a number of officers leaving during a re-structure of the service.

Between 2013 and 2014 the local authority carried out 17,176 actions for the offence, the second highest of all the 32 London borough councils.

However, figures which were available for cases which made it to the court room showed in 2013 six people were prosecuted for dumping rubbish on the streets of the borough.

In total, the offenders were fined £1,650 and paid court costs of over £3000. One person was given a conditional discharge.

In 2014, five people were taken to court, four of which committed the offence in Higham Hill ward.

They were fined a total of £6250 and paid court costs of over £7,500.

Offenders in this area included convenience store chain One Stop London Ltd, Stock Bookmakers of Hale End Road, Highams Park and Ali Bezgingol of Bedford Road in Walthamstow.

In January, Cllr Clyde Loakes called on Government to allow local authorities to introduce a Fixed Penalty Notice of £500 for low level one-off offences of flytipping.

He believes it would do more to prevent the offence and avoid costly court action.

To report fly-tipping phone 020 8496 3000 or fill in the online form on the Council’s website: www.walthamforest.gov.uk.