CONTROVERSIAL plans to axe recycling sites across Pendle look set to go ahead amid fears it could lead to increased fly-tipping across the borough.

Council chiefs, who will save nearly £26,000 by withdrawing the paper bins and bottle banks, have said a number of the locations had become magnets for dumpers.

Opposition Conservative councillors had 'called in' a decision to cut the facilities in Nelson, Colne and West Craven.

Cllr Joe Cooney, group leader, argued the recycling points were 'well used' and provided 'a valuable service'.

He feared their removal would cause a spike in fly-tipping incidents, as a result, and urged officials and the ruling Labour-Liberal Democrat alliance to conduct more 'targeted work' to identify and prosecute offenders.

But council officers produced figures on how much time was being spent on cleaning up recycling sites, with commercial waste dumping being identified as a particular concern.

The landlords of two of the sites, Asda and B&Q, were also said to have asked for the respective sites at Corporation Street, Colne, and Churchill Way, Brierfield, to be withdrawn.

Those locations, and other car park areas near the Red Lion in Colne, Rainhall Road at Barnoldswick, Boot Street in Earby, Nelson's Goitside and Barley picnic, had resulted in nearly 114 hours, between July and mid-September last year, being spent on clear-up operations by workers.

Cllr Clegg said: "Fly-tipping is already a big concern in the borough and officers felt that the removal of these sites would not add to the problem."

Councillors also heard the authority's contractors, Palm Recycling, is introducing a new payment mechanism after assessing the quality of material being left at the points.

Based on material collected from the sites in 2015-16, the council had generated £1,496.

But the company said there were costs of £6,000 to retrieve them, leaving a potential deficit of £4,504 per year, according to council environmental health staff.

An investigation had also shown authorities in Blackburn, Burnley and Hyndburn no longer provided their own recycling sites, relying solely on those provided by local supermarkets.