Moves to bring back regular visits from skips so residents can throw away rubbish may be dumped - because of the cost of policing who uses them.

A central area committee meeting heard that a rota for skips to appear in places such as Brinnington and Adswood helped fight fly-tipping and keep the area cleaner.

But the free service - from Stockport Homes for household waste - was stopped because it was becoming too expensive. At the same time council officers are struggling to cope with fly-tipping.

And at the meeting those making calls for system to return were told an additional cost would be ensuring businesses and tradespeople were kept from using them.

April Irvine, from Stockport Homes, said: “Skips are an issue, I will take your comments back. There was a rota of skips placed according to need.

“The main reason (it was stopped) was costs, they were becoming fairly prohibitive. If we published a road we found businesses were turning up.

“Residents were getting up to find it completely full. We will see if there is room for manoeuvre for a regular service, there is a cost of policing them.”

It was said that skips had been ordered to offer a more limited service but there had been ‘teething problems’ with the supplier.

Councillor Maureen Rowles said: “It was very, very successful. I know cost has something to do with it but we need to look at it again - areas were a lot cleaner and greener.”

The meeting heard Reddish Vale and Edgeley were among fly-tipping hotspots.

Across the four wards of the central area there had been 222 reported incidents from March 10 to June 1.

Mark Calderbank, an area conditions officer, said the alleyways around Freemantle Street and Earl Street, Edgeley, were particular problems.

But catching the perpetrators was difficult as there was rarely anything in the fly-tipping to identify them.

He said: “If it is left in an alleyway we try and find out where it has come from, I am going back week after week, there’s 20 plus jobs a week.

“The infuriating thing is it is just stuff I can’t pin on anyone, 99 per cent of the time it is garden rubbish or furniture. People know we are there and what we do, they are not daft.”

If rubbish is linked to a person or business enforcement action can be taken.