Ramblers at local beauty spots are being asked to keep their eyes peeled for fly-tippers who are spoiling the area by dumping all kinds of waste.

Last week, the National Trust even took unwanted delivery of an old bathroom suite on Headley Common. The trust is actively seeking prosecutions, but to do this it needs a vehicle registration number.

David Kennington, the National Trust's property manager for the south east said: "It's an absolute nightmare at the moment. We get people dumping builders' waste and things like that. Last week we had a bathroom suite delivered to Headley Common.

"It's an issue which crops up the whole time. Builders are really busy round here because of the enormous pressure on housing. They're all trying to cut each others throats and get jobs by keeping costs down and one of the ways of cutting costs is not having to pay landfill charges. They dump it out in the country somewhere where they won't be found instead."

All kinds of waste has been found dumped in car parks at Headley Common and Box Hill, including abandoned cars, building waste, hedge clippings, drums of oil and tyres.

Mr Kennington said: "If the public see this kind of thing going on, we would ask them not to interfere, but see if they can get the registration of the vehicle because once we have that we can do something. We pass it onto the Environment Agency which then starts to take proceedings.

"We're opening up the car parks so they're more visible and anyone who is dumping is taking more of a risk.

"We're also actively considering putting hidden cameras and the Environment Agency are advising us on that."

The Environment Agency is currently working with the wardens at the National Trust. They are currently pursuing recent fly-tipping incidents in which registration numbers were taken.

Jo Hunt, a spokeswoman for the Environment Agency, said: "We work in conjunction with the police force who help us track the vehicle which has been involved with the fly tipping. We take people to court on a regular basis. People have been fined thousands of pounds. We can also issue a seizure warrant and then we can take the vehicle and sell it at auction.

"There are companies unscrupulous companies who go around offering to take waste away on the cheap and rather than take it to a proper site they would have to pay for, they just dump it on a beauty spot or even in someone's front garden. We have had cases with chemical drums where the labels have been peeled off so they cannot be traced, which means the contents can't be identified either. In one case, the drums contained sulphuric acid. If it seems too cheap then it probably is too cheap."

She said: "If a member of the public is suspicious that dumping may be taking place, they should ring the emergency hotline 0800 80 70 60. We can get down there straight away and minimise the environmental damage and gather evidence."