THE number of fly-tipping cases recorded by Barrow Borough Council has reached more than 4,000 since 2012 – yet only three of those cases resulted in prosecution.

The figures from were revealed after a freedom of information request to 201 local authorities.

In 2012/13 the council reported 1,289 cases of fly-tipping. This figure rose to 1,357 in 2013/14 and again to 1,377 in 2014/15.

The amount this has cost has not been revealed.

The council’s spokesman on environment and planning, Councillor Ann Thomson, said: “People won’t pay the £10 to get stuff collected so they just dump it, usually far away.

“We have a very generous scheme where 10 minutes’ worth of items will be removed for a cost of £10, in some areas it is three items for £10.

“There should be more people prosecuted but the problem is you’ve got to find out who’s dumped it and people are getting very clever and they don’t leave any identification on the items.

“We fine a lot of people on a regular basis but we have to have a form of identification in order to prosecute. It costs a lot of money to take people to court with the evidence and the investigation so we save that for the big ones but slap an £85 fine on the small ones.”

Other local authorities in the area also showed an increase.

In 2012/13 Copeland Borough Council had 299 reported cases of fly-tipping costing £12,607, 442 cases in 2013/14 costing £20,337 and 486 cases in 2014/15 costing 333,385, with 21 of those cases resulting in prosecution.

A spokesman for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: “Fly-tipping blights communities and we will introduce fixed penalty notices for small- scale fly-tipping.

“This will provide local authorities with another way of clamping down on those who illegally dump waste.”