BOLTON Council has started 2020 with a further clampdown on fly-tippers, with several people prosecuted in the courts during January.

Each was ordered to pay several hundred pounds in fines, costs and charges.

Among them was Alexa Rowan of Moorfield Grove, who was initially given a fixed penalty notice for leaving a pile of rubbish bags in a street near her home.

After failing to pay, she was eventually brought to court by police officers and fined £450. She must also pay £250 in costs and a £45 victim surcharge.

Simona Iancu, aged 39, of Higher Swan Lane, spent two nights in custody after failing to attend her scheduled court hearing for flytipping offences.

She was fined £200 together with £200 costs and a £90 victim surcharge for dumping seven bin bags in a public space.

Adriana Pop, 21, now of Ellesmere Road, slammed a gate in a council officer’s face when she was challenged over bags of waste left at the rear of her house in Woodfield Street, Great Lever.

The court heard that the bags contained clothing, household rubbish and a “large amount of nappies”. Pop was fined £250 and must pay £500 in costs and a £30 victim surcharge.

Council records show that residents at the same property have previously been given a combined seven fixed penalty notices for flytipping or other waste offences.

Bolton Council’s executive cabinet member for environmental regulatory services, Cllr Anne Galloway, said: “We are just a few weeks into 2020 but the council’s ongoing campaign against flytipping has started where it left off in 2019.

“As a council, we will not tolerate the small minority of residents who blight our communities by leaving waste in our streets.”