VILLAGES are being turned into "auto graveyards" by people dumping their cars, according to a frustrated Malvern Hills district councillor.

Coun Tom Wells says he encounters an average of one abandoned car a week in the lanes around his rural ward of Powick, which also includes Callow End and Madresfield.

The latest find was in Jennett Tree Lane, near Madresfield, which he discovered on Tuesday morning (January 8).

He said: "It's totally irresponsible and the problem is getting worse. Three years ago, Malvern Hills District Council had to pick up 30 cars a year. In the year 2001, this had increased to 300 a year.

"That's a tenfold increase in just a few years and it's the taxpayer who ends up footing the bill.

"If it goes up over the next few years by the same factor, that will be 3,000 cars a year by 2004. It's making our beautiful villages into auto graveyards."

Coun Wells said that to pick up and dispose of each car costs MHDC £40, plus the administrative cost of putting notices on the cars for the statutory period.

"It will end up costing a lot more when a new European directive comes into effect requiring local authorities to recycle abandoned cars, not just scrap them," he said.

Coun Wells said the increase in dumping could be ascribed to the increasing cost of getting cars scrapped at breakers' yards.

"Perhaps we will have to set up local authorities breakers' yards ourselves to deal with the problem.," he said.

"We should also look at doing more to track down the owners of these cars and fining them, or at least getting them to pay the full cost of getting rid of them."