WEEKLY community skips are to be scrapped in Sherburn-in-Elmet after people abused the service by dumping everything from fridges to builders' waste.

The parish council has voted unanimously to stop providing skips following continued misuse, said parish council chairman Bob Packham.

"Essentially, the issue we have is that the skip was costing us a huge amount of money, but it's effectively being abused," he said.

"It's been flooded with all sorts of rubbish and filled up within 20 minutes. There's been builders' waste in there and other things it was never intended for."

The community skip facility has been operating in the town every weekend for more than five years.

But September 2 was the last time it would be provided, Mr Packham said.

He said people had used the skip to dump white goods like fridges.

"We've had instances of the skip drivers being abused by people putting stuff in, and some have even been chased around the town being abused.

"Other items have been left in the lay-by before the skip has even arrived.

"We took the view that now we have kerbside collections of garden waste in green bins, it wasn't necessary anymore, because that was what the skip was originally intended for.

"We believe, as do other parish councils, that the county council should be providing a proper household waste recycling centre."

He said the Sherburn/South Milford/Monk Fryston cluster of villages was the area with the largest population in North Yorkshire without its own recycling centre.

A North Yorkshire County Council spokesman said: "Our policy is that we try to provide recycling centres within 20 minutes of 90 per cent of the population.

"Sher-burn-in-Elmet is just within that limit and there are certainly places in the Dales that are further away from a site than they are.

"Regarding the community skip, we paid a contribution towards the skip and we were happy to continue doing so."

But Mr Packham hit back saying that Sherburn-in-Elmet and surrounding villages had a population approaching 13,000, according to county council figures, which was far higher than any village in the Dales.