City of York Council is appealing for information about a major fly-tipping incident in a rural lane at Heslington, which took place on the weekend of October 20.

Between 200 and 300 tyres were dumped there, leaving the council with a clean-up bill of almost £600. 

This is the first time for a number of years that the council has had to deal with fly-tipping on this scale and is is thought to have been carried out by either a rogue scrap dealer or organised criminals. 

Jackie Armitage, environment and enforcement manager for the council, said: "We wanted to make the public aware of this incident so that residents can help us to look out for this type of behaviour, particularly as it happened on a public right of way. 

"Anyone who witnesses a fly-tip should contact the council with registration details of the vehicle involved and as much information as possible about what they have witnessed.

"The fact that someone has fly-tipped on this scale in a relatively unknown location suggests the culprit is familiar with the local area."

The council would like anyone with information about this offence to come forward by calling its customer contact centre on 551551.

Figures from DEFRA (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) show that fly-tipping is costing councils thousands of pounds of year - the estimated clean-up costs for York for 2006/07 were around £182,000.

Last year, the council dealt with around 1,700 separate fly-tipping incidents.