THE leader of Middlesbrough Council has vowed to crack down on litter louts after discovering two huge piles of "dangerous" rubbish dumped over the weekend.

Councillor Ken Walker said he was left "absolutely fuming" after finding mattresses, armchairs, fridges, broken glass and open tins of paint dumped outside the Temple pub, in Linthorpe Road, and on land in Athol Street.

"We are just fed up with this wanton vandalism," he said. "Somebody has left masses of stuff there and I am seething about it. Now we have got a lot of very dangerous rubbish which is within literally two seconds' walking distance from the Cenotaph and in full view of people coming into the town.

"But my main concern is that we are just going into the Easter school holidays and there are bound to be lots more children on the street who could get seriously hurt.

Coun Walker said yesterday that an enforcement team would sift through the rubbish to try to find out who was responsible.

"The first thing is we are going to make both sites safe, and the second is to find out who is doing this. We are going to take action. This has got to have been dumped by people living there."

He urged residents to blow the whistle on those ditching rubbish on the streets. And he said it was likely that security cameras would be installed in trouble spots to deter tippers.

Middlesbrough Council has just issued its 100th litter fine since last April to a householder in North Ormesby who has previously received warnings. Fixed penalty fines for litter louts will increase from £25 to £50 next month as part of the council's crackdown.

And, if not paid on time, offenders will be taken to court and could end up paying a £2,500 fine.

Middlesbrough's environment commissioner Councillor Oliver Johnson said: "The irresponsible and anti-social minority have got to take this as a warning that their attitude will not be tolerated.

"We will not hesitate to use the full force of the law to drive our anti-litter initiative home.