THE scale of fly-tipping across East Lancashire was revealed yesterday with Burnley named as one of the worst-blighted boroughs England.

The area's seven councils recorded 18,196 incidents of unlawful dumping in 2015/2016, from bags in back streets to ‘mountains’ of rubbish tipped in Altham Lane near the former Huncoat Power Station in October.

Burnley Council's 5,962 cases was the largest number, sixth in national league table for fly-tipping per head of its 90,000 population.

Blackburn with Darwen, home to 150,000 people, had just 3,817 incidents.

Hyndburn had 2,232, before the Huncoat incident, Pendle 3,745, Rossendale 800, Ribble Valley 754 and Chorley 886.

Council bosses and campaigners are calling for tougher criminal prosecution powers to tackle-fly tipping, both domestic and large-scale.

Nationally councils reported almost one million incidents of unlawfully dumped rubbish, 107 every hour, in 2015/16 costing £50 million to clean up.

Hyndburn Council leader Cllr Miles Parkinson called for new powers to use the criminal, rather than civil, courts to prosecute those responsible.

He was backed by Burnley Environment boss Cllr Lian Pate, her Blackburn with Darwen counterpart Cllr Jim Smith, and campaigning Darwen town councillor Paul Browne.

Cllr Parkinson said: “This is not just lazy people dumping bags in back alleys but also industrial criminal dumping as near Huncoat Power Station last year.

“We need criminal prosecution powers for councils, the police, and the Environment Agency which would be faster than the current civil procedures with tougher penalties.”

Cllr Pate said Burnley’s 166 prosecutions was the fourth largest in England.

She said: “We log every incident from just one bag, unlike some authorities.

“New criminal prosecution powers would speed up the process and deal with commercial dumping which is a semi-organised crime.”