Bin collection charges and restrictions to council refuse sites are fuelling fly-tipping in rural beauty spots, the Woodland Trust has said.

The charity revealed it has spent more than £1 million over the last five years removing illegally dumped rubbish ranging from rotting mattresses to defunct fridge freezers.

The Trust was forced to clean up almost 1,300 separate incidents in 2018, a figure it blames partly on increasingly expensive council charges for certain types of waste collection and a lack of access to legitimate tips.

Recent figures show some councils are now charging around £90 a year for garden waste collection.

Meanwhile normal household waste collections - a free statutory right - are down to once every four weeks in some areas.

Some of the notable fly-tipping incidents from 2018 included a discarded bath and a shrine involving a sheep’s head, according to the Trust.

While the clean-up bill of £200,000 for the year was not as high as at the peak in 2017 - £394,430 - it amounts a 42 per cent overall increase from the £140,616 spent in 2014.

Darren Moorcroft, director of estate and woodland outreach at the Trust, which manages 26,000 hectares across the UK, suggested a squeeze on council spending on refuse sites and charges for picking up some kinds of household rubbish were a factor.