Environmental campaigners have welcomed tougher rules on fly tipping - but say more needs to be done.

There has been a spate of incidents across Huddersfield in recent months, and fly tippers struck again at a moorland beauty spot two weeks ago.

Fridges and bags of rubbish were dumped at Marsden Moor, and left teetering on a steep valley slope above a footpath near to Mount Road, posing a threat to walkers.

It is the latest in a spate of fly tipping, which the National Trust has warned is becoming a “huge problem”.

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Fly tippers have been increasingly using rural areas around Marsden to dump the rubbish instead of disposing of it properly.

New laws came into force on Monday, which see fixed penalty notices for fly tipping with fines of between £150 and £400. The new rules will allow local authorities to deal with small-scale fly tipping quickly and efficiently, without the need to take offenders to court.

Fridges amongst items fly tipped on Marsden Moor off Mount Road. The National Trust says the problem is getting worse

Nationally, the problem is costing nearly £50 million a year to deal with, and Keep Britain Tidy has been calling for the introduction of the fixed penalty notices to help councils.

Keep Britain Tidy chief executive Allison Ogden-Newton said: “The new fixed penalty notices give local authorities a new weapon in their fight against the fly tipping which is blighting our country.

“We are delighted that the Government has listened to Keep Britain Tidy and to the local authorities who have been calling for this change to the law.

LOOK at fly-tipping at Marsden Moor below

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“However, more work is needed if we are to get a grip on this problem, in particular looking at prevention of fly tipping before it occurs. We will shortly be launching a brand new call to action on fly tipping, outlining exactly what is required to eradicate this menace once and for all.”

In 2014/15 local authorities in England dealt with 900,000 incidents of fly tipping, an increase of 5.6% on the previous year.

Two thirds of the waste that is fly tipped is household waste.

There have been a number of incidents in the Huddersfield area.

Continuous flytipping keeps Grange Lane, Flockton, closed to vehicles.

In April, fly tippers blocked a country lane at Flockton. They turned up during the night and dumped a huge mountain of waste in Grange Lane, which runs through woodland.

And fly tipping has also blighted parts of Mirfield.

Figures last year showed an average of eight incidents of fly tipping in Kirklees every day.