IRRESPONSIBLE dog owners and litter droppers are in for a shock with an increase in spot fines in Sedgefield borough.

The penalty for people who allow their dogs to foul, or who discard rubbish, doubled from £25 to £50 from the start of this week.

Officers at Sedgefield Borough Council hope that the statutory increase will be a further deterrent in their efforts to clean up the streets.

More than 50 penalty tickets have been issued in the borough since Andrew Bailey was appointed the council's environment enforcement officer six months ago.

He said: "This shows the Government's commitment to trying to stop these anti-social offences because it's a massive increase.

"Since I was appointed I've definitely seen a lot more people picking up after their dogs and we do get a lot of people phoning up about problems in their area.

He added: "One example of how it's working is when we had an incident down in Hackworth Park in Shildon.

"We had a couple of days where we issued four fixed penalties and the next day I went down and lots more people were picking up.

"It definitely seems to be working, so doubling the fines is certainly going to make people think twice about it.