Published by the Environment Agency on 9 June 2026, the Norfolk prosecutions are notable less for the size of the fines than for the enforcement route behind them. Rebecca Simper was fined £200, ordered to pay £1,701.08 in costs and a £108 victim surcharge at King’s Lynn magistrates’ court, while Luke Webb was fined £200 with £850 costs and an £80 surcharge at Norwich magistrates’ court after surveillance linked vehicles registered to them to illegal dumping in Clenchwarton. (gov.uk) According to the Environment Agency, officers had monitored both Clockcase Road and Kenfield Farm since 2018. Clockcase Road covers around 15 hectares near the Great River Ouse and sits close to farmland and residential housing, which explains why the agency framed the conduct as more than a minor fly-tipping incident. (gov.uk)
This was not the first enforcement action tied to the site. In 2025, Philip Moore and Fred Moore were prosecuted over waste dumped at Clockcase Road, with one fined £600 and the other ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work, alongside costs and surcharges; the 9 June 2026 press release places the Simper and Webb cases in that same Clenchwarton sequence. (gov.uk) The evidence described by the Environment Agency is also typical of its newer operational approach. Simper’s distinctive blue Ford Luton van was seen at Clockcase Road in April 2023 despite a restriction order barring access, Webb’s white Ford Transit tipper was then recorded at the same land, and a drone camera later captured Simper’s van at Kenfield Farm in early 2024 while waste was unloaded on to existing piles. (gov.uk)
As set out in the press release, Webb faced one count and Simper two counts of failing to provide driver information under section 71(3) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 after the Environment Agency sent notices asking who had been driving the vehicles. The agency said Simper did not answer four notices, while Webb did not reply to repeated requests and was later arrested on warrant after failing to appear in court. (gov.uk) For policy readers, the point is that information notices are not a side issue. In practice, where surveillance establishes that a vehicle attended an illegal waste site, refusal to identify the driver can itself become a separate criminal route. That helps explain the Environment Agency’s statement that it did not need to prove the identity of the driver in order to bring these waste-crime cases. (gov.uk)
Simper also faced a substantive dumping count under section 33(1) and (5). The Environment Agency said she was charged with controlling, or being in a position to control, a van used at Kenfield Farm to knowingly cause controlled waste to be deposited without an environmental permit. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 provides that where waste is carried in and deposited from a motor vehicle, the person who controls or can control the vehicle is treated as knowingly causing the deposit. (gov.uk) That legal design matters because it shifts enforcement away from a narrow question of who physically tipped the load. In vehicle-based dumping cases, control of the vehicle can be enough to anchor liability, particularly when the regulator has footage showing arrival, unloading and departure. The Norfolk prosecution therefore shows section 71 and section 33 working together: one compels information, the other fixes responsibility for the unauthorised deposit itself. (gov.uk)
The Norfolk file also illustrates how stop notices and restriction orders operate on the ground. According to the Environment Agency, Simper’s van was first seen at Clockcase Road despite a restriction order barring access, and the later drone footage at Kenfield Farm showed waste being unloaded in breach of a stop notice that had already made dumping and burning there unlawful. Under the Waste Enforcement (England and Wales) Regulations 2018, a court-made restriction order can prohibit access to premises and the importation of waste for up to six months. (gov.uk) This sits directly within the March 2026 enforcement shift. Defra’s Waste Crime Action Plan and the Environment Agency’s 10-point plan both say the regulator will make greater use of restriction notices to close illegal sites earlier, while the Regulations require notices and orders to state that non-compliance is an offence; breach can lead to 51 weeks’ imprisonment, a fine, or both. (gov.uk)
The wider policy context is a clear rise in enforcement ambition. Defra says that from July 2024 to the end of 2025 the Environment Agency stopped illegal waste activity at 1,205 sites, secured 122 prosecutions and obtained 10 immediate custodial sentences, supported by an additional £45 million for waste-crime enforcement over the next three financial years. The same plan treats waste crime as a regulatory, criminal and clean-up problem rather than as isolated fly-tipping alone. (gov.uk) The Environment Agency’s 10-point plan gives the Norfolk prosecutions their practical meaning. It combines earlier intervention on larger sites with more drone use, a new Operational Waste Intelligence and Analysis Unit, tighter permit suspensions or revocations, and better information for waste producers and transfer stations when evidence supports disclosure. For operators, landowners and contractors, the case is a reminder that non-compliance can now be pursued through surveillance, information notices, site restrictions, permit action and substantive dumping offences at the same time. The Environment Agency also says a further linked case involving site owner Danny Thorpe is due for trial in November 2026, so the Clenchwarton enforcement work is not yet finished. (engageenvironmentagency.uk.engagementhq.com)