MORE than 39 tonnes of rubbish have been removed from the streets of Burnley as part of a mass clear-up.

There have also been 74 on-the-spot fines worth £75 handed out to people caught dropping litter or not cleaning up after their dog.

The council's new Clean Burnley campaign was launched just over a month ago and the work is said to have already made a "real difference" to the borough's streets.

The campaign takes a zero tolerance approach to tackling problems such as littering, rubbish dumping, dog fouling, fly tipping and commercial waste.

In addition to taking tough action against those offenders who litter and dump rubbish in the borough, there is also work being completed to tidy the area by its new enforcement team.

Coun Charles Bullas said: "The litter teams have done a marvellous job in their first month and I'm sure that they will continue their work hard.

"However, although their work is valuable and much appreciated by the public, we can't simply go on picking up the rubbish on this kind of scale.

"It's quite simple. If people didn't drop rubbish in the first place then we wouldn't have to use public money to clear it away.

"We are taking a zero tolerance approach to littering, dog fouling and fly tipping and anyone caught doing that faces a £75 fine.

"If they don't pay we will take them to court, and we are bringing more and more cases to court through our enforcement work.

"We know that the vast majority of people want to see us take tough action against the minority who don't care about the area and that's exactly what we are doing."

The litter teams, which supplement the clean-up work being done by contractor Biffa and council staff, follow routes covering the whole borough most of the week.

However, one day a week they get involved in clean-ups of specific areas.

Last week, the teams supported staff from housing association Calico in a clean-up of the area around Griffin and Barclay Hills estates.

With help from local residents, six skips were filled with rubbish.