FLYTIPPING in Plymouth has leapt by almost 400 per cent in a year, recent figures show.

About 8,150 illegal dumpings were reported by Plymouth City Council to DEFRA between 2007/2008 – almost four per hour in the working week.

The huge total for 2007/2008 cost the council tax payer £320,000, the figures show.

The previous year saw 1,656 environmental nuisances reported, costing £59,365.

Out of the thousands of dumpings that have taken place, just two people have been taken to court in Plymouth compared to 16 the year before.

Cllr George Wheeler called for the council to be more proactive and take lessons from other English cities, such as Darlington, where figures are much lower and prosecutions higher.

"I think we might learn something from Darlington, Bristol and North East Lincolnshire. Their councils take on a lot more prosecutions. I'm not keen on prosecutions, but if it's the only way then let's be more proactive," he said yesterday at a Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting.

"I think they might be saving their council tax payers a lot of money," he added.

Cllr Nicky Wildy seconded his recommendation to make contact with other councils, and get tougher on the threat of prosecution.

"The threat of prosecution works," she said.

She also pointed out that although other councils' prosecution figures are much higher, their costs are lower.

Darlington Borough Council has a total of 1,981 cases recorded in 2007/08, costing around £100,000 with 98 prosecutions taking place, while Bristol city, with a much larger population than Plymouth, recorded 5,687 instances of flytipping.

Portsmouth City Council fared the worst of all with around 25,000 instances of dumping recorded.

Plymouth City Council said its own figures appeared to be vastly different between the two years because they had changed the way they record flytipping.

A spokesperson said: "Bags of rubbish left in back lanes, for example, are now recorded and fed into the Government's national Flycapture database whereas previously they would not have been logged as flytipping incidents."

Cllr Michael Leaves, Cabinet member for Street Scene, Waste and Sustainability, blamed rogue traders for the majority of the dumping, suggesting that some in the building trade often left waste materials lying about.

"People need to realise they need to be more responsible," he said.

"But we want to educate people properly about waste disposal before fining people all the time.

"We're looking at rolling out a new education scheme over the next few weeks about recycling and garden waste and people now have the new recycling centre at Chelson Meadow which they didn't have in the last six months, so things should get better.

"However, we will prosecute if it's persistent."

Flytipping is a crime and the Environment Agency can prosecute flytippers under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Plymouth City Council say the public should report any flytipping as soon as possible to the enforcement team on 01752 304147.