The number of fly-tipping cases across the county has decreased for the first time in six years following the launch of a council campaign to tackle the issue.

Since anti fly-tipping campaign SCRAP was launched last year, there has been a 7.5 per cent decrease in the number of clearances of illegally dumped waste across the county.

Before the campaign, fly-tipping cases increased by an average of 14 per cent each year over the previous five years.

Speaking during a Bucks County Council (BCC) cabinet meeting on Monday (March 4) cabinet member for planning and environment, Bill Chapple, said the council is “determined” to “stamp out the anti-social and criminal behaviour”.

He said: “Although it is still early days it is encouraging to see the campaign measures are still hitting home – so much so over the next two weeks we will be re-publicising the main messages both in press statements and on social media.

“I know we are determined to stamp out this anti-social, and quite frankly criminal behaviour, and we will continue our zero-tolerance stance on bringing offenders to justice wherever possible.

“Last week we took our 196th case to court, to successfully prosecute a fly-tipper who dumped rubbish in Gerrards Cross.”

Countryside and roads across Bucks have been blighted by numerous cases of fly-tipping in recent years – including 600 tonnes of waste dumped under the A40 Denham Roundabout in 2017.

And mystery still surrounds a huge pile of waste dumped outside Thames Water’s sewage treatment site in Little Marlow, amid confusion over who is responsible for clearing the section of land.

Cllr Chapple praised Bucks teams for their work towards tackling the issue in Bucks, as around one in 38 fly-tippers are caught in the county, compared to one in 638 nationally.

Leader of BCC Martin Tett added: “This is a national crime. We are not just talking about a crisp packet left out of a car window – we are talking on an industrial scale.

“The biggest growth area is the criminal activity – it is normally a man in a van, £25 in the hand, take away some rubbish from quite often a building site or industrial premises and it doesn’t go to a proper disposal site, it gets dumped in a country lane somewhere.

“Sometimes we see this on such a large scale, I think it was down on the junction of the M40 with the 25, they had virtually filled in the area under the M25 with waste.”