WILTSHIRE Council issued 24 fines for fly tipping in the first year of a crackdown on illegal waste dumping.

The authority raised £9,600 from fixed penalty notices in the 12 months to May 2017.

It comes as councils nationwide collected £750,000 from thousands of fly-tipping fines, figures show.

But many have not used the new powers, which allow councils to issue penalties of between £150-£400 to those caught in the act of fly-tipping instead of having to take them to court, a Freedom of Information request by the Press Association found.

Of 297 English councils who responded with figures, more than two fifths (43 per cent) said they had not issued any fly-tipping notices between May 9, 2016, when the powers were first launched, and May 8, 2017.

Some councils have started using them more recently or are planning to use them, while smaller fines for littering continue to be used for low-level waste problems and more serious cases end up in prosecutions, the responses show.

Across England, the number of fly-tipping incidents have risen for three years in a row, government figures show, with councils reporting 936,090 cases in 2015/2016, up 4% on the previous year.

Clearing up fly-tipped rubbish cost councils almost £50 million in 2015/2016, while enforcement action cost nearly £17 million.

Local Government Association environment spokesman Martin Tett said it was wrong that councils had to spend "vast amounts" a year tackling the problem at a time when they continued to face significant funding pressures.

The move by the Government to allow councils to apply fixed penalty notices for small scale fly-tipping - in response to requests from town halls - had been a "big step in the right direction" to help crackdown on fly-tippers, he said.

But he said councils may still feel prosecutions were the most effective course of action.

"When they take offenders to court, councils need a faster and more effective legal system which means fly-tippers are given hard-hitting fines for more serious offences.

"Local authorities should also be able to recoup all prosecution costs, rather than be left out of pocket."

An Environment Department spokeswoman said: "Fly-tipping is an unacceptable blight on our landscape, which is why we have cracked down on offenders by strengthening sentencing guidelines and giving councils the powers to hand out on-the-spot fines to fly-tippers.

"We have made it easier for vehicles suspected of being used for fly-tipping to be stopped, searched and seized and will continue to work with local partners to stop this inexcusable crime."