Report an Illegal Operator (UK only)

PLEASE NOTE.

WE NO LONGER REPORT SUSPECTED ILLEGAL OPERATORS TO GOVERNMENT - SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY DO NOT ACT ON ANY OF THE INFORMATION WE PROVIDE TO THEM.

All vehicle dismantlers & scrap yards have to be licensed by Government.  But it is difficult to tell who is legit & who isn't. And just having a licence doesn't make them either any good or legit  So it's a bit of a minefield.

There are more than 2,500 site-based licenses for dismantlers & scrap yards in the UK, but some (many?) of these appear not to be active (for whatever reason).  There are also many thousands of 'mobile' collectors.

Appallingly there are also literally thousands of unlicensed illegal dismantlers, scrap yards & collectors in the UK. It has been estimated that more than 600,000 vehicles are illegally disposed of in the UK every year (nearly 30% of all scrap vehicles).

Before making a report about a suspected illegal operator, use our Directory to find out whether a vehicle dismantler or scrap yard has all the necessary licences.

If, after having checked, you can’t find a vehicle dismantler or scrap yard or they don't have all the licenses that are necessary, then they may be operating illegally.

There are a number of ways you can report a suspected illegal operator, which we explain below. We recommend you use these.

 

REPORTING A SUSPECTED ILLEGAL CAR BREAKER

If you have encountered what you think is an illegal car breaker or scrap yard, and (having checked first) you can’t find their details on the public registers, then you have a number of options:

  1. Firstly, don’t deal with them.
  1. Report them to the authorities.

You can do this anonymously in a number of ways:

  1. Use the anonymous Crime Stoppers website. This doesn’t take very long but we suspect that not much action (if any) is taken with the reports – we have never received a response (probably because it’s overwhelmed with every other kind of illegal activity):

0800 555 111

https://crimestoppers-uk.org/give-information/forms/pre-form

  1. Report it to the licensing department of your local authority (for unlicensed scrap metal dealers or those offering to pay with cash). You have to search on each local authority website to find their contact details. This doesn;t apply in NI or ROI.
  1. Report it to your regional environment agency using the details provided below.

Environment Agency (England) 0800 80 70 60

NRW (Wales) 0300 065 3000

On-line form: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/7J4RH1/

SEPA (Scotland) 0800 80 70 60

On-line form: https://www2.sepa.org.uk/EnvironmentalEvents

DAERI (Northern Ireland) 0800 80 70 60

e-mail environmentalcrime@daera-ni.gov.uk

EPA (Republic of Ireland) 1890 33 55 99

PLEASE NOTE.

WE NO LONGER REPORT SUSPECTED ILLEGAL OPERATORS TO GOVERNMENT - SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY DO NOT ACT ON ANY OF THE INFORMATION WE PROVIDE TO THEM.