A DRAMATIC increase in fly-tipping is threatening to blight Suffolk's countryside and leaving taxpayers with an escalating clean-up bill.Cases reported to the Environment Agency have risen by 35 per cent - up from 2,902 incidents to 3,908 - in just two years.

A DRAMATIC increase in fly-tipping is threatening to blight Suffolk's countryside and leaving taxpayers with an escalating clean-up bill.

Cases reported to the Environment Agency have risen by 35 per cent - up from 2,902 incidents to 3,908 - in just two years.

The issue was branded a “huge problem” by the Agency which said it was campaigning to make the offence as socially unacceptable as drink driving.

Every time litter is dumped in the countryside, it says the environment is damaged and the district and borough councils have to clean it up at expense to the taxpayer.

In Ipswich the figure rose from 339 to 573 between 2005 and 2007 and in Babergh from 335 to 415.

In the East of England, the problem costs local authorities almost £4m a year, with 57pc of incidents involving abandoned household waste.