There are laws about burning certain types of waste and to prevent smoke from burning causing a nuisance.
You cannot get rid of household waste if it will cause pollution or harm to people’s health. This includes burning it.
You can get rid of household or garden waste by composting or recycling it. For more information, visit our webpages on:
Smoke from burning waste can be considered a nuisance. It can cause harm and can be unpleasant.
When we receive a complaint, we'll investigate it to decide if it's a statutory nuisance. It's very important that you give the correct address of where the bonfire is coming from. If a statutory nuisance is found, we must serve an abatement notice on the source of the problem. This requires the bonfire to be controlled.
Sometimes we may serve a notice and the bonfire will continue. In these cases, we consider prosecuting the source. Prosecutions for a domestic bonfire or smoke are rare. If this happens, you may have to give evidence in court about how the bonfire or smoke affects you.
Use our online form to make a bonfire nuisance complaint.