SHOPS should pay customers 10p for every plastic bottle they bring back for recycling, the president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England has said.

Emma Bridgewater, who lives in Bampton near Woodstock, has called on the Government to introduce a "compulsory deposit" system to battle the tide of plastic bottles thrown away in bins and littering the streets and countryside.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday today, Mrs Bridgewater, who also runs the Emma Bridgewater pottery factory in Stoke-On-Trent, said: "Ten billion plastic bottles are thrown away every year, littering streets and polluting pristine landscapes alike. I want to see this tide driven back.

"The Government has already made important strides in cutting our use of plastic bags. Now we must do something similar for plastic bottles.

"I am proposing a compulsory deposit system, such as used to be offered on glass bottles, so that customers have a real incentive to return them for proper and safe disposal.

"Even 10p per bottle would have an impact. Other countries, Germany for example, have schemes of this sort. I think such a move would be immensely popular."

Mrs Bridgewater, who grew up in Oxford and is best known for running the Emma Bridgewater pottery brand, also attacked plans to build 300 houses near her home on the boundary of Blenheim Palace.

She wrote: "In Woodstock, it's hard to find anyone who wants the threatened housing development, certainly not the majority of locals."

About 500 people have now sent objections about the 300-home scheme by Blenheim Palace and Pye Homes to West Oxfordshire District Council.