INCIDENTS of illegally dumped waste increased by 20% on public land last year, suggest the latest statistics.

Local Authorities dealt with some 852,000 fly-tipping incidents at a clean-up cost to the public purse of £45.2m in 2013/14.

Nearly two-thirds of fly-tips involved household waste.

The 20% surge in incidents reverses recent year-on-year declines in fly-tipping, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

A number of local authorities reported an increase in the amount of fly-tipping.

Some councils have introduced new technologies making it easier to access the problem – such as on-line reporting and electronic applications as well increased training for staff.

Defra said this may partly explain the increase in the number of reported fly-tipping incidents.

The Countryside Alliance, which campaigns against fly-tipping, said it was clearly time to put a stop to the crime.

Figures published by Defra only represented incidents of fly-tipping on public land, and therefore only showed part of the problem, it warned.

Landowners had to cover the cost of rubbish dumped on their private land themselves and at personal cost to the individual or organisation.

Alliance head of campaigns Sarah Lee said: "For individual landowners particularly, there is often a feeling that they are dealing with this costly problem on their own and they can feel isolated and ignored.

"Fly-tipping is anti-social and the longer we fail to tackle to the root causes of this problem the worse this is going to get."

Little seemed to have moved on since the alliance released a report in 2007 calling for greater action, said Ms Lee.

"It is now time for action and we call upon the government to work better with local authorities, landowners and other civic bodies to make this blight unacceptable."