A mayoral candidate has promised he will clean up his "untidy" town if he wins the election.

Jagtar Singh-Dhindsa, who is representing Labour at the election in May, wants to make Watford a cleaner place to live, work, and visit.

It comes after figures from 2016-17 show that there was an increase of 7 per cent in fly tipping nationally.

Vicarage ward Cllr Singh-Dhindsa said: "Across Watford and the whole country, the scourge of fly-tipping is getting worse and worse. We have seen an increase of 7 per cent in fly-tipping. That’s over a million incidents or 114 fly-tipping incidents every single hour.

"It costs £58million a year to clean this mess up. Yet prosecutions are at a record low, down 25 per cent over the same period.

"Dealing with this problem requires action, not tinkering around with slight increases in fines. So, I pledge that if I win the election, I will take the necessary action required to deal with the problem head on."

The Labour hopeful, who is currently chairman of Watford Council, has promised to re-introduce free bulky item collection if it wins control of the mayoralty and council in May’s elections. This service previously existed but was scrapped by the Liberal Democrats when they won control of the council.

Cllr Singh-Dhindsa added: "People are crying out for this problem to be dealt with. Not a week goes by without some increase in rubbish being dumped on our streets. We have proposed mobile CCTV units to catch the fly-tippers in the act but the Liberal Democrats refused it.

"If you look at places like Labour-run Nottingham City Council, they have reduced fly-tipping rates by 42 per cent through introducing free bulky item collection. This is the kind of pioneering action to improve residents’ lives that a Labour council will deliver."