A farmer has exposed the ‘ridiculous’ licence system that lets criminals blight the countryside with flytipping – by registering her prize cow as a disposal official.
Ann Maidment, 42, who works on her family’s cattle and horse farm in north Wiltshire, said it took just five minutes and £184 to sign up her prize animal, Beau Vine, as a legitimate rubbish disposer.
The qualified rural surveyor made the move after her family’s farmland fell victim to flytipping, to demonstrate the lack of checks needed for criminals to pass themselves off as waste management businesses to members of the public.
It is feared criminals can legitimately obtain waste licences with no formal ID, business or criminal record checks, meaning they could use fake names or details and not declare previous environmental offences they may have committed.
They can then use these to charge the unwitting public to dispose of their rubbish – before simply dumping it on somebody else’s land instead.
Ms Maidment, who is the director of the Country Land and Business Association’s South West branch, is calling for stricter checks on applicants.
She told the Daily Mail: ‘A system that cannot stop a cow cannot stop a criminal.
‘Beau Vine excels at eating grass, lounging in the sun and a leisurely moo. Waste management, however, remains stubbornly beyond his remit.’
Ann Maidment, 42, who works on her family’s cattle and horse farm in north Wiltshire, said it took just five minutes and £184 to sign up her prize animal, Beau Vine (pictured left), as a legitimate rubbish disposer
Beau (right) now holds an official licence to dispose of waste, despite him not being human – a flaw in the system farmers and experts fear could be exploited by criminals
She continued: ‘This is actually to focus in on how ridiculous the system is at the moment that approves applicants instantly.
‘It’s not regulating waste, and it means it’s smoothing the path for more criminals to dump waste in the countryside.’
The move raises concerns over the robustness of the process and its ability to detect criminals or those using fake details from real waste management firms.
In the UK all people and businesses who transport and dispose of rubbish must hold a waste carrier, broker or dealer licence.
These are obtained through the Environment Agency and typically cost just under £200.
The application process involves providing an individual or business’s name, address and contact details and paying the fee – at which point the licence is granted.
But those filling out the form are not required to give any form of official identification verifying who they are or their business credentials.
When obtaining a licence, applicants simply have to tick a box to confirm they, and their employees, have no history of environmental offences. But without identity checks, it is unclear how the Environment Agency confirms an applicant has been truthful.
The Daily Mail went through the application process on the Environment Agency’s website, and was able to go straight through to payment without providing any ID, proof of address or business documents.
Ms Maidment said this allows criminals who regularly flytip – a practice that costs the economy £1 billion each year – to exploit the system.
‘We saw that the system actually is very simple. It takes less than 5 minutes, and is approved immediately.
‘We know that this has been exploited by criminals who are then flytipping in the countryside, so we wanted to raise awareness of this by applying under a very unusual applicant,’ she said.
Beau received an official certificate from the Environment Agency confirming the waste carrier and dealer licence
‘The government needs to introduce more urgent checks, verification and standards, so that it’s not a simple rubber stamping exercise for fly tippers.
‘And then we can start protecting the countryside and the community that they harm so much.’
Mark Hall, waste management expert at BusinessWaste.co.uk, told the Mail: ‘The fact that Ann was able to register her cow so easily, with limited upfront checks, shows there is a clear need for stronger identity verification at the point of entry.
‘This example underlines the potential for criminals to register under false or misleading identities to feign legitimacy, mislead unsuspecting members of the public, handle waste illegally, often through fly-tipping and then disappear before enforcement action can be taken.
‘Weak identity checks make it easier for bad actors to present themselves as legitimate operators, and strengthening these could go a long way in tackling the UK’s ongoing fly-tipping problem.’
The government has been urged to crack down on criminal gangs and rogue traders believed to be behind a surge in flytipping in recent months.
The number of cases councils had to deal with last year jumped to 1.26 million in 2024/25, official figures show, up from the 1.15 million they had to deal with the previous year.
Some 52,000 cases across England involved an amount of rubbish that was equivalent to a tipper lorry load or more, an 11 per cent increase on the previous year, with these larger cases costing councils £19.3 million to clear up.
John Roberts, Chief Service Officer for Kingdom LA Supports, which provides environmental enforcement to local authorities to assist with tackling issues including flytipping, said greater checks and education of the public is needed.
‘More checks to make sure people are legitimate from the [Environment Agency] that hands out the licences absolutely would be great.
‘But we all need to be asking to be able to see them, and to do that would really help us reduce the amount of flytipping.
In November, a crime gang was blamed for abandoning a 500ft-long, 50ft-wide, 30-ft high pile of waste (pictured) in the Oxfordshire countryside just metres from a nearby river
‘There’s a lot of ways now to to identify if an applicant is a real person, being able to submit photos of driving licences or passports would obviously help to identify that these people are who they say they are.
‘Also waste carriers, when they’re taking your waste, should be providing documentation of where they’re taking your waste to. And if it doesn’t get there, and ends up as part of the fly tip, it makes our job working alongside the local authority very easy.’
He added that individuals who have given their waste to rogue traders are often tracked through addresses or names found in flytipped rubbish – and most of the time they have not asked to see a relevant licence or documentation.
In these cases members of the public who pay someone to dispose of rubbish which is dumped illegally can be prosecuted themselves.
Meanwhile the rogue traders themselves all to often disappear after leaving behind mountains of potentially dangerous refuse.
In November, a crime gang was blamed for abandoning a 500ft-long, 50ft-wide, 30-ft high pile of waste in the Oxfordshire countryside just metres from a nearby river.
Although some dumped waste is mere household rubbish, bigger hauls frequently contain harmful substances such as asbestos or dangerous chemicals.
This can risk contamination of local water sources and put animals and crops at risk.
According to a survey of farmers conducted by the CLA, nine out of ten respondents had been victims of flytipping in the past 12 months alone.
The rubbish can cost tens of thousands of pounds to clear which landowners have to stump up themselves if the perpetrator is not found.
Earlier this year, a Hertfordshire farmer faced a £40,000 bill to remove mounds of roofing material, bathroom and kitchen fittings, and house clearance rubbish from his land.
The Daily Mail understands the government is now planning to update the registration system to introduce stricter background checks and enforce tougher record keeping requirements.
It is also considering options for harsher penalties for those who break the law, but is ‘unable’ to give an indication of when these reforms might come into effect.
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) spokesperson said: ‘Waste crime is a scourge on local communities.
‘We are working across government to wipe out illegal waste throughout the country and make those responsible pay including significant reforms to the carriers, brokers and dealers regime.
‘We are directly supporting the Environment Agency to stop the exploitation of our waste system, including a £43 million boost to waste crime enforcement, and tougher sentences for those who break the law.’
