HAMPSHIRE's countryside has become a dumping ground for flytippers.

And rural villages in the Test Valley are some of the worst affected areas. Fly-tippers have also dumped in more built-up villages.

Now officials at Test Valley Borough Council have launched a crackdown on flytippers and are urging householders across the authority's area to be on the lookout for people dumping unwanted waste materials along country lanes and other locations.

If follows a spate of incidents across the area and in the last month council staff have cleared tonnes of dumped waste including dangerous asbestos materials and much of it is believed to have come from where people are having renovation work done on their property.

Borough officials report that that staff have been called out to more than 100 incidents recently. These include King's Somborne Road at Braishfield, Toothill, Broadwoods Lane at Wellow and three streets in North Baddesley.

There has also been reports of fly-tipping at Lockerley - where a batch of old mattresses were ditched in East Dean Road, and alongside the B3084 at Mottisfont where tree cuttings and other garden waste were thrown out of a vehicle and left at the side of the road.

Test Valley Borough Council is now urging householders to check that anyone removing waste from their property is authorised to do so in a bid to prevent more fly-tipping incidents.

This includes people carrying out landscape gardening, house clearances and building work for residents.

Officials say traders are usually required to have a waste carrier licence issued by the Environment Agency and householders should check before allowing builders or anyone else to remove rubbish from their property.

Borough council cabinet spokesman for the environment Councillor Graham Stallard is urging everyone across the Test Valley to be vigilant.

Mr Stallard said: “The council has recently responded to a number of reports of fly-tipped waste and has cleared rubbish including roof tiles and sheets of asbestos. Many people aren’t aware that householders who don’t take reasonable measures to check that operators are legitimate waste carriers can be fined up to £5,000, so we urge people to be vigilant, ask where their trader plans to dispose of the rubbish and take notes of their waste carrier number and vehicle registration number.”

And earlier this year around a ton of hazardous asbestos material was dumped in the car park at Plaitford Village Hall on the Hampshire-Wiltshire border and community-spirited waste disposal firm Solent Environmental Services Asbestos Ltd rode to the rescue of hall bosses and removed it free of charge after Test Valley environmental health officials refused to remove it because it was on private land.