Abandoning rubbish on the streets costs £6.3m a year

There were 81,882 incidents - 224 every day - of rubbish dumped in streets, lanes, parks and wasteland in the financial year that ended in March.

More than 40 per cent of the bill was run up in Newcastle, where the clearance and disposal of 25,590 piles of junk cost almost £2.6m.

But Gateshead (£858,668), Sunderland (£383,594), Redcar and Cleveland (£302,546), Hartlepool (£196,345) and Stockton-on-Tees (£189,163) also faced big costs.

Now local authorities will be given powers to issue on-the-spot fines for some fly-tipping, under legislation passed in the summer.

The measure is designed to avoid the costly and time- consuming process of taking suspected offenders to court, although punishments are then much steeper.

Since April, magistrates have had the power to impose five-year jail terms and illegal tippers can be ordered to forfeit their cars, or be banned from driving.

The cost of fly-tipping in the North-East is the third highest of any English region after Greater London (£10.8m) and Yorkshire and the Humber (£7.6m).

But bills were much lower in North Yorkshire, including in Harrogate (£23,059), Hambleton (£11,448), Richmondshire (£11,137) and Ryedale (£2,988).

Ministers have recently asked environmental charity Encams - formerly known as Keep Britain Tidy - to train authorities to use fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping.

That power, contained in the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act given Royal Assent in June, will come into force next April.

In addition, the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science is researching the causes of fly-tipping, to produce a good practice guide for councils by next spring.

Darlington has been celebrating the success of its 100-Day Grot Spot Campaign, aimed at ridding its streets and back lanes of dumped junk.

Almost 500 calls were taken from residents ringing a hotline, which led to more than 30 tonnes of rubbish being collected - enough to fill three refuse lorries.