COUNCIL bosses have been called on to do more to punish flytippers as figures show despite thousands of incidents across Blackburn with Darwen over the last three years, less than 30 fixed penalty notices [FPN] have been handed out.

But the council has had success in targetting people who dump rubbish on a larger scale, the borough's environment chief maintained.

Between April and November this year, there were more than 2,555 fly tipping cases in the borough with just two FPNs issued.

Three cases have resulted in people been taken to court this year as a result of fly tipping and two resulted in fines, though one case was discontinued.

In 2016/17, 3,883 incidents were logged, with 3,857 recorded fly-tipping incidents last year.

In total, 10,295 cases of fly tipping in the borough have been logged over the last three years.

But in 2016/17, just two FPNs were issued and though the number rose to 22 in 2017/18, it has fallen again to two so far this year.

And in 2016/17 and last year, no-one was taken to court as a result of illegal rubbish dumping.

Darwen councillor Roy Davies called on town hall bosses to take more enforcement action to clean up the borough's streets.

He said: "I think any councillor worth their salt would be really concerned about these figures.

"These people are getting away with it and it needs more enforcement by the council. We have groups of people in Darwen and Blackburn doing a fantastic job but we need to see more from the council.

"The Darwen group is doing a great job cleaning the streets but it is the same rubbish in the same streets and we need action from the council to sort it."

Borough executive member for environment, Cllr Jim Smith, said the council had been focussing on people who dump rubbish professionally.

He said the council had used intelligence to help seize vehicles from a number of people who were being paid to clear houses but then dumped the rubbish afterwards.

Cllr Smith added: "Catching people can be a problem and in certain areas it is almost impossible.

"We have invested in cameras to try and help and we ask people to inform us.

"It comes down to residents giving us information we can use."

On conviction the fine for fly-tipping is up to £50,000 or six months imprisonment or both.

It can be reported online at https://www.blackburn.gov.uk/Pages/Litter-and-fly-tipping.aspx.

In comparison to Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn Council was alerted to 2,397 reported incidences of fly tipping between August 2017 and September 2018

Almost half (47 per cent) of reported fly-tipping involved waste dumped on back streets with 51 per cent being household waste.

And 49 per cent of cases involved a small van-sized load.

Earlier this year, DEFRA published figures revealing fly-tipping has cost taxpayers more than £1million across East Lancashire over the past year after almost 20,000 incidents were recorded.

Pendle saw the highest number of incidents in the area with 5,704 reported, while Hyndburn council spent an area high of £374,390 cleaning up fly-tipping.

Burnley saw the number of incidents decrease by more than 2,500 from the previous year, but still recorded more than 3,000 cases, as did Blackburn with Darwen.

In total there were 18,267 incidents in East Lancashire dealt with by councils and local authorities spent a combined total of £1,349,982 in clean-up costs.