New pressure on bin collections over shock fly-tipping figures

Theresa May is facing new pressure to order town halls to empty household bins weekly after Government figures revealed fly-tipping incidents topped a million last year.

The shock figures, from Michael Gove's environment department, are up 7% on last year and the highest since 2008.

It means councils have been left with a clean-up bill of £58m.

Opposition MPs are blaming cuts in Government funding for town halls, which they claim has left councils cash-strapped and forced to empty bins fortnightly or even every three weeks.

But Downing Street says while the Government supports "frequent and comprehensive bin collection" it is up to councils to decide how often they empty bins - and they have powers to tackle fly-tipping.

The phasing out of weekly bin collections has been a contentious political issue since Tony Blair's Labour Government allowed councils to switch to fortnightly collections to encourage people to recycle.

Ahead of the 2010 General Election, former Tory leader David Cameron said weekly bin collections were a "basic right" and Eric Pickles pledged to restore them when he was Communities Secretary in the Coalition Government.

Mr Pickles - now Sir Eric - also gave councils new powers, which came into force in May last year, to issue on-the-spot fixed penalty notices of £150 to £400 for small-scale fly-tipping.

The new figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) reveal that in 2016-17, 56,000 of these fixed penalty notices were handed out by councils to people caught illegally dumping.

Two-thirds of fly-tipping was household waste, the figures also revealed.

Typical examples included dumping bags of household waste, fridges and other white goods, along with building rubble, tyres, asbestos and even animal carcasses.

The highest number of fly-tipping cases were in London boroughs and big cities such as Manchester and Liverpool.

Asked if the Prime Minister would like to see more weekly bin collections, a Number 10 spokesman said: "Fly-tipping is never acceptable, no matter what the circumstances.

"Councils have a full range of tools at their disposal to tackle this issue.

"We have been very clear that we support frequent and comprehensive bin collections, it's up to councils to decide on the litter collection strategy that works for their residents."

But Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse said: "Britain's fly-tipping epidemic is spiralling out of control. Too many fly-tippers are being let off the hook.

"The Government needs to do more to ensure those responsible are brought to justice.

"Cash-strapped councils need more funding so they can increase bin collections and stop charging people to get rid of large household goods."

Martin Tett, of the Local Government Association, said: "Clearing up fly-tipping is costing councils millions of pounds per year - money that could be spent on other services, like caring for the elderly, protecting children or tackling homelessness.

"It is unacceptable that they are having to spend vast amounts each year tackling this scourge."