Fly-tipping costs Sussex councils about £500,000 a year to clear up and investigate, according to new figures.

Rubbish ranging from builders' waste and garden furniture to car tyres and turf is regularly dumped across the county.

Farmers are among the worst hit.

Mike Fordham, of Bradfords Farm, Little Horsted, near Uckfield, said he and many of his farming colleagues witnessed the effects of fly-tippers about once a fortnight.

He said: "It's not just me, every farmer suffers the same. Most farmers with land bordering country lanes experience having all sorts of debris dumped. Unless we make an effort to clear it up it becomes a rubbish dump.

"What irritates me is that you try to go in a field and find there's a load or furniture in the way."

Last week more than two tonnes of top soil and turf was dumped on Mr Fordham's land. He said: "You have to put it to one side - on to the verge - and the council will come to clear it if it's a potential hazard. It will clear what it considers necessary."

Mike Pashler, head of waste and commercial services at Wealden District Council, said the council was responsible for clearing rubbish dumped on public land but anything on private land was the owner's responsibility.

He said there had been five reports of fly-tipping in the Little Horsted area in the past year.

Last year Mr Fordham found garden furniture, barbecues and parasols tossed into hedgerows on his land.

He said: "As farmers we all get thoroughly irritated but fly-tipping has always happened. It's just getting worse because the rules and regulations for disposing of waste are more stringent.

"You have stories where people will go to the landfill site and get turned away so they think let's go and dump it in the countryside'.

"It's well known that some firms out there are unscrupulous and people will pay them unwittingly to have their rubbish taken away and they will dump it in the countryside. That has always happened but it's getting worse now.

"It used to be that we would see the odd dumped car but now because they are worth more as scrap we don't get that as much. People moan that it costs the country millions but why not give people incentives and say bring it to the landfill site and pay them a tenner."

A spokesman for East Sussex County Council said: "Fly-tipping is illegal.

People who do it can be fined thousands of pounds."

The figures were revealed after a freedom of information request to Sussex councils.