THOUGHTLESS flytippers left taxpayers with a clean-up bill of more than three-quarters of a million pounds in just a year.

New government figures unveil the clean-up costs of all Sussex councils to deal with more than 7,600 incidents in 2015/16.

Some councils are reporting increases in items being dumped in the current financial year.

Authorities are now pulling out a range of tactics to try and catch flytippers in action including CCTV and hiring new staff to specifically deal with the issue.

Just this week Brighton and Hove City Council announced it will start taping off flytipping incidents as crime scenes in a bid to cut down the city’s “major problem” with the dumping of large furniture and household goods.

Councillor Gill Mitchell, environment committee chairwoman, said: “It always surprises me that so many people think it’s ok to dump unwanted furniture and other rubbish on the street assuming that the council will take it away.

“Our campaign sends out a clear message that dumping rubbish in the street is a criminal offence and anyone caught fly tipping faces a hefty fine.”

Clean-up costs vary from £7 for a single black bag to up to £55 for a tipper lorry load of dumped waste.

Brighton and Hove had the highest number of incidents with 2,619 though this was a significant drop on the 2014/15 figures of 4,187.

Adur, Crawley, Rother, Mid Sussex and Eastbourne all recorded annual falls in flytipping at odds with the national trend with Lewes’ dropping almost fourfold since 2012/13.

Mid Sussex District Councillor Gary Marsh said: “We’re certainly not experiencing the increases that have been reported in some areas of the country.”

An Arun District Council spokeswoman said: “We are in the process of increasing the enforcement team to enable us to identify and deal with offenders quickly and effectively.”

A Crawley Borough Council spokesman said: “Overall things are reducing gradually and we’re expecting the trend to continue and another reduction to show for 2016/17.”

Hastings Borough Council spokesman said incidents were on the rise with 1,903 between April 1 2016 and January 31 2017 costing £66,605 to clear away. The council has just agreed to increasing littering fines, introduce a new fine of up to £400 for fly-tipping and launch a year pilot with a environmental enforcement contractor.

A Rother District Council spokeswoman said: “We have had a number of successful prosecutions in recent years, some of which have led to imprisonment, which sends out a clear message to others considering fly-tipping.”