DROPPING cigarette butts in a town centre is burning a hole in smokers' pockets - and will continue to do so.

Smokers caught flinging away dog-ends in the streets of central Middlesbrough are being issued with £50 on-the-spot fines, with the threat of prosecution if they fail to pay up within 14 days.

So far, half a dozen smokers have been fined. Whether they are visitors to the Tees town or residents makes no difference. Three of the four fixed penalties issued in the last few days applied to visitors from Leeds and Ashington.

The fines are part of Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon's war on the weed.

So far, 61 businesses have signed up to his ambition to turn the town into a smoke-free zone, it was revealed yesterday. And council officials are confident 200 firms will have signed up by December.

With one person dying every day from smoking-related illnesses in the town, the former CID chief has made cutting the number of smokers a priority.

Twenty special wall-mounted bins are to go outside key buildings and other places around the town centre, where people congregate for a smoke, in a bid to tidy up the town.

Judith Hedgley, Middlesbrough Council's environmental health manager, said: "These bins will help businesses go smoke-free, and to keep Middlesbrough tidy by reducing the problem of cigarette litter in the town."

Dr Anthony Luke, who heads the council's enforcement team, said : "The provision of these bins will mean that there is no excuse for throwing cigarette ends on the floor, and the enforcement team will continue to issue fixed penalty notices to anyone caught littering the town in this way.

"We just could not simply do any more than what we are doing. We are giving people the opportunity to do the right thing.''

He added: "There were a couple of fines round about the year 2000, but that was a kind of trial. We have really started seriously with the fines, recently, as the mayor's no-smoking vision takes off. The law states that a single discarded cigarette end or even a single piece of chewing gum is sufficient to be classed as litter.''