TAXI drivers have criticised measures by Darlington Borough Council to impose spot fines on litter louts.

A team of council wardens have been given the authority to issue £25 fines to anyone they see dropping rubbish on town streets.

But they only work until 7pm, and the taxi drivers say most of the worst littering is done by late-night revellers.

The debris that late-night clubbers leave behind includes empty pizza boxes, half-eaten hamburgers and kebabs, beer bottles and even condoms.

Mick Kennedy, chairman of Darlington's Independent Taxi Drivers' Association, said: "Most of the litter in this town is discarded from 9pm onwards. You see people coming out of the pubs and throwing bottles in the street and dropping pizzas on the floor.

"If the council is going to use taxpayers' money for these new measures, they might as well do a proper job of it and go out at night."

Council spokesman Steve Jones said the wardens worked in staggered shifts from 7.30am to 7pm Monday to Saturday.

He said: "We cannot do this kind of thing 24 hours a day as we have limited resources, and we have got to target them where needed. It would not be cost-effective to pay the wardens to work during the night.

"If you go around any city in the UK, do they have people working in the middle of the night looking for litter louts? The answer is no."