EALING council was rubbished' in national and London press this week over its decision to use hidden cameras in bags of rubbish.

The Daily Mail, The Evening Standard reported that miniature CCTV cameras were to be used by the council to target residents who let their rubbish bags spill out onto the street on Tuesday this week.

The Sun, Daily Mirror and Daily Telegraph then followed up the story yesterday (Wednesday) saying Ealing housholders would be charged £1,000 of caught by the hidden devices.

The articles claim the cameras, which cost around £200, will be hidden inside objects such as house bricks and tins to catch "enviro-criminals".

They would be used to catch large-scale fly-tippers and graffiti vandals, but it was also reported that they would be used to catch people who leave their rubbish out on the wrong day.

Councillor Will Brooks, (Con, Greenford Green), is quoted as saying that anyone who leaves rubbish out on the pavement will be treated as a flytipper.

The article, which was printed on Tuesday, also quoted Labour councillor Virendra Sharma (Lab, Norwood Green), as saying: "I predict a lot of complaints about this method of catching litter louts. It is possible that many will question the motives of using CCTV and feel it is an infringement of privacy.

"Educating people on rubbish collection times is a better long-term solution than spy cameras in baked bean tins."

But the council has hit back at the coverage branding it inaccurate and misleading. Ealing Council spokesman Neil Dhot explained that the cameras may be used to target persistent waste offenders - but not against people who just leave their bags out early.

He said: "The article contains a number of major inaccuracies and misrepresents Ealing Council's common sense approach to tackling serious envirocrime issues.

"We are not using disguised CCTV cameras to target residents who simply leave out black bags early for collection or allow them to spill onto the pavement.

"Where residents don't understand when their collection day is, our officers knock on doors to explain.

"At no time has Cllr Will Brooks said anyone who broke the rules on collection would be considered to be a fly-tipper.

"While cleaner streets is one of the council's top three priorities we have a balanced approach of education and enforcement to make Ealing a more pleasant place for residents to live.

"Disguised cameras are not being installed around the borough. We have three, mobile disguised cameras at our disposal. They are only deployed where a major envirocrime issue has been identified, such as vandalism, graffiti and serial, large-scale fly-tipping.

"People who persistently dump their rubbish all hours of the day and night, every day of the week, are acting irresponsibly and blighting the borough.

"We make no apology for taking the toughest action against those few who continue to blight our borough without any thought of the impact on the majority of residents."