OUR beautiful county is being blighted by people who dump their rubbish illegally.

It's a problem council workers have had to deal with several years but more and more money is being spent cleaning the mess up. And they're urging the public to be on the lookout to help catch those responsible.

West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) received 850 reports of fly-tipping over the past two years.

Councillor Carol Reynolds, cabinet member responsible for the environment at WODC, said: “We take fly tipping extremely seriously and our enforcement officers work hard to track down offenders.

“We always investigate fly tips where evidence is present.

"We’ve received about 850 reports of fly-tips over the past two years, which have resulted in 19 fixed penalty notices, 11 prosecutions and 273 duty of care inspections.”

Reporter Michael Race spent time with officers at Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire District Councils to discover just what the issue of fly-tipping involves.

The authorities have warned residents to look out for the signs of 'selfish and reckless individuals' dumping rubbish illegally.

The teams, which deal with fly-tipping incidents every day urged the public to watch out for people offering to dispose of their waste for cut down prices, adding if the deal sounded too good to be true, then it probably is.

And if a person's rubbish is illegally dumped by a fly-tipper, the resident themselves can be fined or even prosecuted in court.

Both South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils have actually seen a reduction in the number of fly-tipping incidents by 3.8 percent and 25.2 per cent over the past three years respectively.

But there have been concerns raised elsewhere that not enough people are being bought to justice.

In 2015/16 there were 255 incidents of fly-tipping reported to the Vale compared to 497 incidents in South Oxfordshire.

Of those, incidents 23 prosecutions were made by the Vale compared to nine by the South Oxfordshire team.

It is understood Bayswater Road between Barton, in Oxford, and Beckley is a hotspot for waste being dumped, along with areas near Elsfield and Marston.

Elsewhere, Wytham, Thrupp Lane in Radley and Sandy Lane in Kennington have been blighted by rubbish.